David is suitably admiring of my fiddling around with all things crafty, as any proper partner would be! Sometimes he likes to throw in some ideas himself, like the little bag most of the stuff from todays photo comes from. “I just wanted to see what you could make of these” he exclaimed, presenting me with an assortment of cloisonné beads and varying metal jewelery findings- sliders, fittings, spacers…

Thanks, darling.

So this is one thing you can use random components for. It’s strung on waxed silk, I tried with nylon but then the brass spacer kept hanging crooked. It was a bit tricky to get it to hang straight anyway, but by using the tiny holes between the ornament plate and the spacer holes rather than the spacer holes themselves I got it there.

There are a few knots and tangles hidden in and around the spaces and the round cloisonné bead to get the different parts to stay in place. To avoid having an extra ending somewhere in the middle of the necklace all three strings run all the way from the butterflies to the clasp at the neck, one on one side and two on the other from the round bead.

Cloisonné butterflies necklace

Today I also learned how difficult it is to photograph crystals.

Here are two Swarovski items; a pendant made of 8mm flowers and my first ever earrings with 8mm hearts.

I’ve had the flowers for quite some time but haven’t known what to do with them as they are drilled through the middle and will not hang in a very practical way on a piece of string. Here, they are on flat headed hat pins cut in different lengths that I’ve simply bent at the end.

The earrings are simply strung on thin black wire.

Time to update here, first time this year, and it’s already March!

This is a simple ball chain with a strass ring pendant. The left over of the chain is used in the pendant with a part of an old earing – the strass heart – a painted sweet water pearl, a few crystals and a beautiful Klimt’ic Tree of live pendant from Sirlig.

The beads and pendants are fastened to the ball chain with clamshells w/ hook. You’ll have to cut one of the hinges from the clamshell to fasten it over the ball. To keep the piece of chain from slipping through the strass ring it is tied with thin wire to the ring that holds the red glass heart.