In truth I had placed my last blog posting into drafts until I had completed this complicated necklace as there were many days between where I left this project and its ultimate completion.
As was mentioned in my last post, I'm either a glutton for punishment or crazy as I put a small fortune and way more time than I should have into creating this piece. In the previous installment of "A Glutton for Punishment" we left my black and white project at about this point in its progress towards completion (see Photo below).
Photo below...Since then much has been added.
I decided to use the sweet little, jet black glass hearts as single dangles instead of coupling them with the silver glass leaves. If you look closely you might be able to see the jet hearts topped with tiny 3 mm firepolished crystals and micro 2mm beads of hematite. Instead of the black glass hearts the silver leaf dangles received small swirled wire charms that I made myself (see photo below for close-up). It worked out well, or at least I'm satisfied with the results.
You probably don't remember (I certainly didn't expect you to that's for sure) that I mentioned my project had to be put on hold yet another time as I required some type of link to add the side of the necklace. Not just any old link, I needed something special and found it in this hammered textured rhodium finished oval link. Perfection !!!
Personally I like the way this link helps tie the elaborate center section to the sides of the necklace but I realize this is a matter of taste.
The other side is attached by way of a link that I made using a large black glass bead and a couple of pretty bead caps, making sure that the wire loops were sufficiently large. A sand dollar charm was added as a counter weight to the large link and as an element of interest.
This side of the necklace also sports some whimsical hand coiled spirals and an assortment of stacked or capped black and white beads.
The side with the spirals, ends with a hook style clasp that I made using 20 gauge wire (doubled) and embellished with a complimentary black (slightly wire wrapped) bead.
The other side of the necklace features a fair sized cable chain to accommodate the clasp. A cute teardrop white bead is used as an end to the extension chain and is adorned with contrasting black beads and that really cute bead cap (love these caps!).
Photos below show the completed necklace. Perhaps I fell into Alice's rabbit burrow and went a little too far with the whimsy but to be honest this piece never truly followed my carefully drawn plans, instead it seemed to tell me what to do and, even though it was a long time in the making and created a lot more work than I ever imagined, I'm grateful that I listened to it.
Unfortunately the stacks of black beads look like one continuous bead in my photos, I tried making them (the photos, not the beads) lighter and though that made the individual beads recognizable it also washed out everything else ... so I settled for what appears to look like big long black beads which are in reality really either 3 to 5 beads stacked together. Ah the joys of photography.
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