Amethyst Necklace Re-fashion -- One Gorgeous Piece Becomes Two

A friend of mine asked me shorten this beautiful amethyst necklace. 

How gorgeous! She thought it was a bit long and wanted the pendant to hang at about 18 inches.

Easy enough, just a little bit of wire wrapping and viola, a fix.

But what to do with the rest of the gorgeous amethyst left over? 

I took the left over pieces, added some citrine, a pearl pendant and gold chain and made this choker for her.

Here is a photo of the two new necklaces out of the original.

Here is a close up of the new necklace made from the left over amethyst chain.

Green garnet earth tone necklace with pearls or with out pearls?

Sometimes I make a necklace but something just isn't right. I made this necklace a while back and I loved the idea of dangling pearls. I had to give it a try. I liked the idea of it but not exactly the execution. Could be the pearls were too big, the drops are too far apart, I couldn't put my finger on it. 

Today, I took all the dangles off. I did a new pattern of garnets and I added the pearl into the chain instead of dangling from the chain. I also updated the dangling pendant to be more proportional, lengthwise, to the piece. 

It's a lot simpler in design and feel. But I think that's what I didn't like before. It was just too much stuff on one strand. Some pieces call for that. I like this version for this piece. The "less is more." What do you think?? 

Pink Pearls and Rubies

One of my first projects was this hand knotted necklace. I was dying to make a double wrap, long necklace using some beads I purchased from ebay, firemountain.com and an opal pendant from a necklace I had. 

After a few wears, I felt like it was a bit heavy. It looked dense and felt dense so..... I cut off the ruby section and preserved my pearls. This made it a one strand. I added a focal labradorite to dress it up. My sister in law was visiting and she scooped it right up :) 

I made her matching earrings with input from my neices and she had a whole new set to wear.