Coral before and after...

Someone gave me this. 

I wish I knew who to thank for these awesome red coral beads. 

I fixed the broken necklace and used a few strands for some fun experimentation. 

I made this beauty using the elastic I use for stretch bracelets. 

I just slip it on over my head. It's easy on and easy off. My mom will like that. I think I will make more elastic necklaces. 

These are two stackable bracelets that I made also adding turquoise and German silver cube like beads. 

Another shot

I'd say this was a successful refashion. I'd like to return the fixed necklace to its owner but can't seem to remember who gave it to me! 

It's so pretty! Needs to find its way home. I'll keep asking. 

I love a good refashion!

With or Without Pearls--A Refashioned Necklace

Before I had made this necklace into a double wrap length with these beautiful pearls. 

But when I went to refashion it, I took out the pearls and made it simpler. 

Which do you prefer?? 

Actress Mycole Metcalf Wears Kuri Yasuno Designs In Head Shots

Wholesale Order -- A Request for Sturdy Young Girl Earrings with Style

Oh boy! Here's an order where I was trusted to use my design powers to come up with earrings for young girls. This was challenging because I don't know exactly what young girls wear but very fun and flattering that she trusted I could deliver. Off I went. Pinterest and imdb.com looking at all the young stars of today to see what "the young kids are doing these days."

To keep cost low, I ordered silver fill earrings. To keep with the sturdy theme,  I ordered lever backed earrings instead of hooks. Hooks could slip out when jumping on say, a trampoline.  Not sure why this activity popped into my head but we go with it. 

Next I set my sights on color. Who doesn't like pink and blue. After a lot of playing around, here are the pairs I came up with. 

I hope they sell out in the first week!

Here is the rest of the order. So much stuff I couldn't get it to all fit in the photo :)

Teacher Appreciation Week

I made stretch bracelet stacks for each of my sons' teachers this year. Gotta appreciate those that better my boys!!!!

Birthstone Gemstone Jewelry -- A Thoughtful Custom Made Gift

My friend Lesley had the brilliant idea to give her nanny a necklace and a pair of earrings using the nanny's birthstone and the gems of her awesome daughters.  Since then, I have been creating these lovely, thoughtful gifts for other beloved nannies!

Here is one I made for a wonderful nanny with a May birthday that takes care of two girls with birthdays in November (citrine) and January (garnet.)

The process:

When I get the custom request, I lay out a variety of options.  This first photo below was ideas for the bracelet ideas. The second was for the necklace ideas. This customer combined some ideas together and we settled on the above.  She was super easy to work with too, which I think lends to a better finished product. Good happy vibes, good happy product.  Maybe?

She will be receiving her gift for her birthday in May. I hope she enjoys her one of a kind necklace and bracelet set that represents so much appreciation and love.

One necklace recycled, upcycled, modernized into multiple pieces

I am still very close friends with my freshman year roommate from college. When we say this, many people raise an eye brow. I assume this means that many are not still in contact with that person they shared a dorm room with the nerve wracking first year of college.

Noelle and I are still besties and she is one of my biggest supporters. As is her mom.  Here is a photo of a necklace that her mom used to wear a lot but then became tired of.  She sent it along to me so that I could re-use the beads for other projects.

I smelled a challenge :)

I decided to re use all of these beads and create new pieces but trying to use only the beads available (and adding when necessary.)

So here is the before:

And here are the afters:

Here is the complete collection.

I still have two beads left that I wanted to make rings out of but ran out of steam.

I sent all of these to Noelle as a surprise and happily enough, they are all going to find new homes this Mother's Day.  

What a great feeling that not one bead was wasted!

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.

Tis a gift to be simple...

We sang this song in chorus at my elementary school. Then, Yo Yo Ma played it on the cello at the Obama swearing in. So random that I remember this from 4th grade. Anyway....

A friend of mine graduated from high school recently so I wanted to make a present. I heard she liked blue so....

I wire wraped a blue Quartz with small faceted aquamarines on either side. There were many trial and errors with laboratories, pearls, silver beads etc but in the end, I settled on the dark blue and pale blue theme. I could have left it simple but I couldn't resist a little sassify-ing. I also felt like this was something she could get anywhere. 

I played around with embellishments. 

I thought about cutting the chain and adding a few gemstones on both sides. I thought about adding more briolettes. Then I found my kyanite stash. Perfect color match. 

The final product......

Pretty, original, and unique. Just like the recipient herself :). Congrats on graduating!

Thoughts? Should I have left the embellishments off? Let me know :)

To pendant or to not to pendant....?

Pearls. I have noticed I've been drawn to large, odd shaped pearls lately and was talked into buying the last two strands of peachy pink tear drop shaped pearls at my last gem faire. They were gorgeous so why not? 

While visiting my mom, I made her this. 

Her pearl were more round and disk like. 

My next strand looked like this. 

This worked out because she likes round, I prefer irregular. To finish this guy, I added a pendant. 

Fancy close up, please:

Preference?

Today's Necklace--decisions, decisions

I need to make ten of the same necklace for a future press gifting event. I was playing around with some ideas and took these pic along the way. I wanted to use these pale blue jade beads I got at the San Diego bead faire. When I was adding the chain components, it looked very simple and sweet. 

I wanted the piece to have an edgier feel so I decided to add some pyrite in gunmetal to the other side. 

I could have left this just like a chain but I wanted to see what a pendant would look like. 

Hmmmmmm pearl? That always looks classic and elegant. But not too edgy. Pyrite??

I decided to go with the cool shaped pyrite bead stacked with a silver spacer and a silver toned pyrite. The finished necklace looks like this. Would you be happy to receive this as a gift? 

Easy DIY Teapot Necklace--no skills required.

Today, I wanted to post a necklace I "made" over the weekend.  I put "made" in quotes because really, what I did was walk into the craft store in search of a storage container, meandered onto the beading section, saw an impossibly cute package of tea themed charms and bought them.

I suppose this would look terrific on a charm bracelet or something more complicated but all I did was buy a16 inch sterling silver chain. The simplest one.

That was it. I put the teapot on the chain and viola. The perfect necklace for me. Why? Because I drink a lot of tea. I love tea. Its my go to drink. There's a cute tea cup in this package. That may be necklace number two.

Perhaps next time you  are at the craft store you will walk over to the beading section, find a charm/pendant you like and put it on a simple chain. I saw some adorable Alice in Wonderland ones, I saw Acorns for Wendy lovers from Peter Pan, I saw hearts, turtles, fish, dragons, and so much more! 

What an incredibly inexpensive way to make custom gifts for your friends!

I feel guilty posting this as a DIY.  But maybe someone will make a necklace seeing this post and have that "AHA that's so easy I could totally do that" moment :)

Happy snowy Monday.

Follow me for more fun and easy ideas or just pretty pictures of beads!

Oops I did it again... I played with some emeralds and citrine.

Yes! I admit it. I loooove bad music. The pop music that makes people cringe makes me totally seat bop. Or as the young kids say. Totes awesome. I know. I am so lame. But Brittany, Back Street Boys? I can't get enough. But I digress. This is not a pop music blog. It's a beading blog. So here goes. 

My girl friend/beading bestie sent me these three sparkling yellow citrine ovals one day so I made this. 

Soooo pretty. Love emeralds and these had this sparkly rich dark green thing that was completely reflected in the price but now is not the time to contemplate my addiction either....

After a few wears of it like this, I made a quick and simple change. I moved the emeralds out from between the citrines. 

And this is how it pretty much stayed until last night, I decided to play with it some more and now........

Ok wait. Here it is with my branch -- I keep having to hide it in the coat closet bc the gardeners want to take it and my boys think it's unfair that I get to break the "outside things stay outside" rule. 

And finally, me. 

Dreaming of Summer and Working with Turquoise

Saturday means piano at 9:30, tennis at 11 and now, acting classes at 1pm. Here I sit for hours waiting for both boys to learn the fundamentals of acting. My two future Keanu Reeves? I'm trying to think of other half asian male actors....

And it's cold. Just cold. So I hunker down with my hot tea in my hot cup and my travel beading bag. 

Today, I've decided to work with turquoise. It's making me think of warm days, white t-shirts and summer jewelry. 

I oxidized some 26 gauge silver wire to make it black. I thought that would look nice against the smooth but uneven shaped stones. After starting, the 24 or even 22 gauge may have been better bc the 26 is thin and hides into the holes of the beads but it's subtle and I like it. 

I got about 10 inches done in the lobby of the acting school and now that I'm home, I'm thinking about clasps and a possible pendant to dangle off the clasp. 

Because the beads are large, a hook is probably easier than a toggle. So, I lay out my options. 

Left to right my options are

-baroque silver pearl 

-baroque cream pearl 

-a large moonstone

-pale pink tear drop shaped pearl 

The sizes are roughly the same so I think at this point, it's personal preference. 

Not sure what I'll pick just yet. 

This is a peek into my process :) 

And this is the final finished product 

Can't wait for warmer weather. :)

Here is me wearing my new turquoise necklace with a summery top. 

David Yurman, I Love You.

David Yurman is one of my favorite jewelry designers. I love the chains, the stones, the rings... One day I saw a quadruple strand moss aquamarine necklace in a Yurman catalog and fell in love. But me, being sort of smallish, probably couldn't wear all THAT.  So off I went, on a quest to recreate. I wish I had the original picture. I will keep looking

Regardless, here is my David Yurman inspired triple strand necklace. And a selfie to boot :) 

Looks great with my usual, very casual style :) (so says me, taker of selfie and maker of jewels....)