Necklace: Shades of Blue

Yesterday i posted an undergoing project I was working on since yesterday, which I planned on making  a Christmas present for someone.

Well.. It's all done now and I managed to get a nice photo of it earlier today as well :)

The process I went through to create this piece is that I made the pendant first. I simply added a stop bead just before the first 8/0, before the Swarovski bicone, and then I added the following after the bicone: 8/0, lampwork bead, 8/0, 10mm bicone and another 8/0 seed bead. From there I began to play out a coral fringe in a lighter blue and a darker teal blue in 15/0's. For where I turn back the fringe, I used 1.8mm Miyuki cube beads and 15/0 galvanized silver seed beads in a permanent finish by Toho.

When the pendant was done, I used a Beadalon beadingwire to attach the core beads of what was going to be a spiral rope. Measured out an even number on each side (added the pendant in-between, in the very center). Then I began to work my way on my speedy spiral rope technique :3

BTW - 24th of October 2012

It's been quite some time since I posted a bead table, and I thought it would be time to do so once again.
As you probably know by now, I'm working on a Marie Antoinette inspired necklace since a while now. The first part of the necklace is done, and the last bit I still have to start with ( I know how I want it already).

I decided to pop on a little break and start something smaller and I've been having in mind to create a blue necklace for someone for Christmas. Not gonna say whom, since the person reads my blog once in a while, heh :P

Anyway, on the picture you can see what I've done so far. I've started on the pendant, which consists of two 10mm Swarovski bicones and a lampwork bead. I'm currently adding a coral fringe for this (15/0's and 1.8mm Miyuki cubes).
When that is done I've planned on attaching it to a spiral chain to give it a little bit of "puffy-ness". I might add the magatamas you can see a little bit of in the upper left corner in the photo, but we'll see. It all depends on how it will look with them, and without them.

Marie Antoinette Update IV

Another update on my work in progress :)

The first part is pretty much done. It's done before I'm gonna add a fringe, anyway. The fringe will be added later when I can connect both parts together.
I'm gonna start on the final part of the necklace as soon as I'm done with a Christmas present I'm creating for someone.

Marie Antoinette Update III

Another update just before I finish up the last area of this piece and give it backing and edging :)

What I did is that I decided to include more darker colors to go with the pink/peach, to give the piece a lot of contrast. I'm especially in-love with the dark green iris seed beads which I used to fill up a lot of the empty spaces.

I'll probably post an update when I've given the piece an edging. After that I'm gonna immediately begin on the collar part. What I've planned so far with that is that I want to incorporate a couple of Swarovski rivolis as focal, but keep the colors settled. I'll see if I break my planning of colors in this piece, everything depends on how it looks in front of me when I'm working it :)

Wire-Wrapped Pendants

Yesterday I played around with wire again and I created two pendants, using wire-wrapping. I did some research before I went out to try to create a bezel for a cabochon from wire, just to make sure exactly how I could execute it.

My first pendant is created after a project from the book "Wire Jewelry Masterclass" by Abby Hook, and it features a spiral-like bezel. I used a gemstone cabochon from my collection, but I have no idea what sort of gemstone it is, lol.

For my second pendant I looked up some basic techniques on the internet to see how to make a basic wire-wrapped bezel, and I found one that was really handy, which I decided to use for references. I only have round wire in my stash, and the tutorial recommended half-round, which I understand would make the whole wrapping a lot easier for something like this. The round wire really made me work, as it didn't want to stay in place too often, lol, ah well, at least it's completed :P
Also, the cabochon is a Rock Crystal and the gemstone chip beads are Labradorites.

Last week I also invested in some "Gel Patina liver of sulfer", since I've been wanting to do some patina on my wire projects. And on this second pendant I had a bit of fun and made the copper go completely black, heh. Then I polished and buffed it on various places to give it more contrast.
I need to add a "fun" factor about the Gel Patina; it smells like rotten eggs, lol.