2 posts in one day?!

It's a miracle! :P

I've been making jewelry here and there for years. It all started in high school when I took my first jewelry and metals class. Lucky for me, in my town, there's an adult night school that focuses a lot on hobbies and the arts. So of course I jumped on the chance to take another jewelry class and get myself reacquainted. That was about 3 years ago now, and I've been trying to make more jewelry lately. I've made a few as gifts for people. This particular necklace was one I made for my mom and my fiance's mother for Mother's Day last year (yeah...I know I'm just a tad behind on posts hehe). I liked the design so much that I made a few more for gifts for my sisters.

Anyway, the design is simple, and that's part of the reason why I like it. Here are two pics of the final product. Sorry...didn't take any while I was making them. And also sorry for my lack of photography skills.

To make this necklace, I used my handy dandy bead board that looks like this:

Bead boards are great. They're super cheap and actually are very helpful. I had a general idea of what I wanted from the start. I just had to work out the number of beads for each type of bead I used, which is where the bead board came in perfect hand. I usually make more symmetrical pieces, but I love the one flower accent on this one. I believe I just used some jewelry cord I found at my local craft store. I wanted to use a thicker cord, so beading with a needle was out of the picture (for me at least...if someone knows how to do that with a thick cord, please share! :)). My aunt told me a neat little trick she uses when stringing pearls. Use super glue or nail polish on the end of your cord or string to keep it stiff (making a needle-like end point) and to keep it from fraying. Best trick ever! Thanks, Aunt Ann! :P Once you get your design on the bead board, string it up and add your findings. For this necklace, I used store-bought findings again just from the local craft store.

OK, well, that's all I got. I'll try to do a better job of recording more pictures throughout the process going forward. As of now, I'm just sifting through pictures of jewelry, crafts, drawings, paintings, etc. to see what's blog-worthy.

Until next time!