Mn (Manganese) - The Metallics Collection (Part VI)

Part 6 of the Metallics Collection is Manganese...

More photos on Etsy.

This is the first set that I actually sketched down the design that I had in my head instead of just making it straight away. 

Manganese necklace sketch

I'm not going to win any design drawing contests, but as you can see from the photo above, it turned out almost exactly as I designed.

I knew I wanted a statement focal, similar to the stunning metal necklaces that they wear on the catwalks and red carpets.  However there were two issues to be addressed.  First of all I'm not a goldsmith or a silversmith, and I don't have access to the materials or equipment needed to make something like this, and I hardly think my little hobby Dremel would be happy to cut through huge sheets of metal!  Second, metal tends to be heavy, and I prefer to make jewellery that looks like the real thing, but is actually wearable.

I discovered these beautiful rumpled rhomboids when I was looking what to spend the £50 gift voucher I won on.  I combined them with these acrylic metal twisted squares that I had left over from another project.  The silver spacer beads that I usually use didn't have the effect that I was looking for, so after raiding my accent bead box I found some acrylic metal rondelle spacers, which looked more like the lopsided circles I'd drawn in my design.

You'll notice in my design, that I only have two silver squares, which didn't hang right, so I added another with some very frustrating wire-bending techniques.  I didn't want the chain to detract from the focal, so I found the smallest chain I could.

The earrings were another problem.  There weren't any smaller versions of the squares that I'd used in the necklace, and yet just one of either the gold or silver looked wrong.  I measured both together with the earwires, and they didn't seem as long as they looked.  Only problem was, that even my longest headpin wasn't long enough.  Luckily I had left over wire from the necklace and bracelet, which I coiled into a spiral at the bottom to hold the squares in place.

As you can see, a lot of work went into this set, and I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

Necklace: £50.00

Earrings: £32.00

Bracelet: £30.00

or buy the set: £90.00