Chrysocolla Necklace N Aventurine Earrings

While I was in Beijing last year, I bought a whole lot of natural stones/beads from the famous Pearl Market.  I am not an expert in stones so I could not tell if they were true natural stones. Nevertheless I just got to have them because they were so beautiful.

Some of them were not very common (to me) and I have difficulty identifying them.  This greenish big bead is one of them:

I think this may be Chrysocolla (enhanced).  The sales person told me that the color was not of original and it has gone through some enhancement process.  But what the heck - I just love it.

After weeks of straining of my non-creative brain, I came out with this long necklace:

The smaller green stones could be Green Aventurine, which were given to me by  Jezamine - a dear friend residing in Ottawa.  These stone chips are not easy to use as they are of irregular shape.  I also made a pair of matching earrings using the chips:

I like the earrings more than the necklace as I find that the latter is a bit too heavy in look.  

Mmmmm.......natural stones are just beautiful!!!

  

Wire Work - Earrings

After 6 to 7 of no-beading years, the beading work of a friend's daughter has brought my interest back. Instead of seed bead beading, I have begun to try my hands on wire work.  The above earrings are only a fraction of what I have made.

During those crazy days, my mind was full of beading, beading and nothing but beading.  Though I was just making the earrings simply by matching different beads and other components, the possible outcome was endless.

I got hooked on beading!

My beading appetite got bigger after few months of doing simple wire looping, I ventured into wire wrapping: 

.....and also other wire techniques: 

I like to bead but what am I going to do with so many pairs of earrings?  Of course I kept some for myself. Some were given away as gift but most were donated to my church for its Church Building Fund Raising event.  Not bad huh? At least the work did not go to waste. 

Daisy...daisy...

Lady in Black

This was my first attempt on beading and it was copied from a library book.   It is a Flat Peyote choker (even number).  The color chosen for the daisies is not bright enough so the flowers do not stand out - this is bad.

The seed beads used were of craft quality and I thought it was all right as long as the work is at hobby level and not for sale - until and unless my skill is upgraded where consistency is there. However,  I was so wrong.  Cheap beads give me problem because the size of each bead is not consistent.  Help! I'm stuck with a whole lot of such beads!