A Glutton for Punishment Part I

I'm not sure if I'm just a glutton for punishment or just plain crazy ! I tend to underestimate my future projects and start out thinking they will be small and manageable however they always end up becoming big, complicated and time consuming.
Several posts back ( Trouble Getting From Dream to Reality )I gave you a glimpse of a vision that I had of a black and white piece. It was a vision that danced in my head like those proverbial sugar plums in the poem "Twas the Night Before Christmas".   But what a challenge it has been, seems I never had just the right things that I needed such as strong enough jumprings, ones that wouldn't come open as soon as the necklace was picked up. So I'd order parts, wait for them to arrive, then sit down and with anticipation of completing the project dive back into putting it together. Part way through it would dawn on me that something was wrong and guess what ? ... I needed something else that wasn't in my vast supplies of beads, findings, wires and parts. SHOOT !!! DRAT !!!  And Double Dang-it !!!
So have to go look around,  find what I think will do the trick, place an order and wait some more.

Photo above..Lovely black and white Venetian glass oval bead will be the center focal point.  Only as the more I worked on it I realized that 1 - the center focal point was being buried beneath the disc bead dangle and 2 - my handmade jumprings,  made from 20 gauge silver plated copper wire, kept coming apart. 

Finally I did manage to put together the center area of the necklace and it has turned out far more complex than I had ever imagined. The heavy weight 18 gauge jumprings from Jewelry Supply that I ended up purchasing are performing well and I haven't had any open up on me yet. Yay!  Unfortunately I've just about used them all in this project and decided to order some more from a different vendor ... the new jumprings are not nearly as nice nor as strong so it's true that sometimes you get what you pay for.

Photo above ... Been busy as a bee wire wrapping black and white disc beads to use as dangles. I decided to add a larger solid back bead for the Venetian bead to hang from as the black and white oval bead needed to be longer. Yes, it's filling in nicely but still needs something.

Photo below... How about some of these Czech pressed glass leaf beads with a silver finish ?  Might add the tiny black hearts as dangles just below the leaves ?

Photo below ... As you can see I added a large black bead at the focal center to make the Venetican oval bead hang lower, it was being hidden by all the black and white disc bead dangles.  Hmm and those lovely little jet black glass hearts that have one side with an aurora borealis finish ?  Well they didn't look so hot as dangles hanging WITH the leaves so I may add them as dangles on their own ... not sure at this stage.  Besides I now need some type of large, fancy link to attach at the side of the necklace. 

Photo below ... As you can see I've attached a few of the silver leaves but it still has a lot of fill work left to be done and there's still the problem of what to add to the loops that I created beneath the silver leaves ... the loops I made to hang the sweet little black glass hearts from.

Stay tuned for Part II as things may change ... oh undoubtedly they will change!

Trouble getting from Dream to Reality

Have you ever had an idea but had trouble turning it into reality? 

photo above...elbow deep in a project (idea) that is giving me fits.

I know what I'd like to do but lately my beads seem to be fighting me and I'm getting rather frustrated.  First I couldn't find chain that I could afford  liked, so I decided to make the jumprings and put one together myself.  Using 20 gauge wire I began coiling and cutting away.   Now I'm finding that the jumprings are not staying closed as the beads that I'm adding are too heavy for this application.  Oh bother !

Photo above...The small section that I've done but it's not working out.  Right now I'm having trouble with my homemade jumprings as they keep opening up with the weight of these beads.  As you can see it is going to be a black and white theme with a marvelous Venetian glass bead as a focal pendant.

Photo below...Using some of these black and white beads -

photos below...Maybe a sprinkling of crystals -

Photo below...and a splash of these jet black hearts with an AB finish  -

photo below...Then, just for fun maybe I'll throw in a couple of these?