REDDY - JADDY

I love challenge...in the field of beading.

A friend saw my heavy weight necklaces and requested me to make one for her. The challenge is - to make use of the jade pieces which were supplied by her:

Her request was to have a pendant as big as possible.  After days of thought, I have decided to join up the four jade donuts to form a centre piece.  It seemed wire wrapping was the only method to be used so that the joined up piece will keep its shape as it intended to be.  Bead weaving  may be a better way but it is not my forte yet and there was time constrain.  After a few attempts, I finally achieved the desirable effect:

Mission accomplished! It is a long necklace with the centre piece resting just below the chest.  If she so decides to have it shorter as show in the second picture, I will just have to take out a few pieces of the red bead.  This would not be possible if stringing method was used.

HEAVY WEIGHT ATTEMPT 2

I was all ready to make another BIG necklace.  While trying to find another big stone for the pendant, I found a big jade ring.  I must have stripped and sold off the gold embellishment because the design was no more appealing to me. 

It took me quite a while to come out with a design and here it is:

The metal flower at the centre of the ring and the two big metal beads are very, very heavy.  The jade it self is not light weight either. So, I used super light weight beads (the four irregular shaped ones) to complement.  Hopefully the wearer will not have to suffer from stiff neck and shoulders.

HEAVY WEIGHT ATTEMPT 1

Ahhh...my hands were itching again...just got to bead.

Hmmm...let's see what I've got........got it! I'd try BIG pendant necklace. 

I have never tried stringing with heavy beads.  Should I use Tigertail? Well, I went ahead and gave it a shot.

Here is my first attempt:

Oooo, I really enjoyed the process of beading especially the initial stage of design.  I have got to look at what was available and tried to mix and match.  The second challenge was to think of the technical part.  In this case was making a bail for the pendant.  This was where a little bit of wire wrapping came in.  Hey, I still could do it!

Now that I have gained a little confidence making big necklace of this kind, I will have a second go - perhaps a heavier one.

SIMPLY PEARL

Oh my goodness, time flies! It has been almost a year since I last beaded and blogged. Well, it was my choice to have taken up two courses over the past nine months. Priority, priority, priority. No regrets.

Now, back to beading.

I have been commissioned (by my daughter) to reconstruct two of her old pearl necklaces.  I totally stripped of one of them, salvaged only the beads and added new ones to make a long pearl necklace (pic A).  As for the other one, I took out the crocheted flowers and added some new pearls to make a pearl-chain necklace (pic B). These two new pieces can be worn on their own as shown or combined together as one multi-strands pearl necklace (pic C).  How about that?

                                       pic A                                       pic B

pic C

Prior to this project, I have made for myself a simple bold pearl necklace.  "bold" because those are BIG pearls.  See for yourself!

Its bead size is 16mm The one at the foreground is the necklace shown in pic A and the bead size is already 10mm!  The stringing material for this short necklace is tigertail wire. I used seed bead between the beads to prevent the pearl from rubbing against each other. 

By using a decorative clasp, I am able to wear it in different ways:

                  

   

Hmm....I should have use a bigger clasp to make a statement .....and pearl goes better with gold than with silver.

Lessons learnt.