Irene's Present

In April, my Gran asked me if I could make her a necklace as a birthday present to give to her next door neighbour.  I then found out her birthday isn't until November!  I showed her the beads I had and we deliberated for a very long time.  Mainly because my Gran, unfortunately doesn't have much of a talent for visualising.  To make it easier for her I asked what Irene's favourite colours were and I could build around that.  My Gran replied that she didn't know, she'd lived next to the woman for over 50 years and still didn't know that much about her!  My head hit the desk.

Anyway, we eventually discovered her favourite colours were red, black and green and I got to work mid August.  When I took the finished necklace to my Gran for her thoughts, she was admiring my bracelet (the one in this post).  We agreed I'd make one as an addition to the necklace for Irene.  


Now I've got photos of the necklace, but I forgot to take photos of the bracelet before I gave it to my Gran.  When I next go over to my Gran's I'll try to remember to get a photo.

My Gran wanted something light and long enough to fit over Irene's head so she wouldn't have to fiddle with a clasp.  I used the rest of the red seed beads I had left from the Americana set and alternated with black fire polished beads.  On the right side I added a copper petal connector, which I manipulated into a flower.  On the second strand is a mix of emerald green seed beads and more of the black Czech glass beads.

As a focal, I peyote stitched black coral and green seed beads together and wrapped it around the strands to make it look knotted.  On the ends of the strands are red acrylic bicone beads and light green Czech glass beads.  I hope Irene likes it.  I'll let you know!


I posted this to give you a glimpse of the customisation process.  This design was loosely based on one I made my Gran for Mother's Day (Sorry I don't have a better photo):

Girls 'n' Pearls Set

I bought some beautiful vintage style findings, cabochons and cameos from America and I've been dying to use them in something.  I mixed them with my great-grandmothers pearls (fake), which gives it this really elegant look.  Although not when I'm using my hot wheat pack to show how it hangs!  I really must invest in some displays!

Girls 'n' Pearls Necklace

Girl with Nightingale cameo on Oxidized Brass setting

Earrings

I've plenty more of these antique/vintage style findings (I went a bit mad!) and I love making this style of jewellery.  You can be sure that there will be more like this, actually for sale soon.

If you would like me to make you something similar to this, please feel free to contact me at: kymberligee@gmail.com with "Girls 'n' Pearls" in the subject line.

Fun with wire & beads

The last few weeks I've mainly been testing out new techniques and having fun with new designs.  These aren't for sale, but they give you an idea of what I've been doing and what things you can expect to be coming to X99 Jewellery.

Celtic loop ring

Purple & grey Lattice Bracelet

The lattice bracelet is customisable, as I'll show you later with one I was commissioned to make for my Gran.

Peacock Set

I've had this peacock feather (bought when I was a kid) lying around, and it's always getting lost.  So I thought, why not make something out of it that won't be so easily lost, so I made this for myself.

 

First I cut the feather as close to the plumage as I could, but I didn't throw the other bit away.  I'll show you what I did with that later.  I wrapped copper wire around the top and around a copper jump ring several times for security. 

 

I used the many different coloured semi-precious stones I had to emulate the graduating colours of the feather itself.  I started with Goldstone flecked Bluestone chips on either side of the feather pendant.

I didn't have any purple beads that matched the shade I wanted, so I went for turquoise instead.  This is "S" shaped Blue (dyed) Lemon Turquoise.

 I then threaded different sized Antique Bronze metal beads onto pins and bent them into a marquise shape and hung these pear shaped - Turquoise (dyed) Picasso Jasper beads from them.

 There's two thin lines of brown either side of a bright green before it fades into the beautiful dark green colour on the feather.  So to emulate this, I got to use my new brown acrylic beads and lime silver lined seed beads.

 Finally I ended with one of my favourite semi-precious stones - Malachite.

 And it's all connected with an antique bronze barrel clasp.

 So what did I do with the rest of the feather?  I stripped it and made earrings!

 A couple more malachite chips and Capri blue beads for distinction...

 

and voila! Peacock earrings.

 

I have no idea what the price is as I was just having fun.  I can't replicate this design at all, it's just something I made for myself.  I do plan to do more work with feathers though, so keep checking back!

Tagua Nut Necklace

Yay! I was commissioned to do my first piece!  Okay, so it was for my Mom, but she's paying me for it.  I'm also designing one as a present for my Gran's next door neighbour.  Less about that and more about the new necklace I've made.

So Mom wanted a chunky necklace that went with these old earrings of hers:

This what we came up with:

The big beads are called Tagua nuts, which both of us fell in love with as soon as we saw them.  They're from a variety of palm tree (according to my supplier's website), and dyed different colours.

 

Because they're a natural bead, they vary in shape and sometimes have blemishes (the bark), which make them very distinctive.  I used Bali spacers in between the three focal beads.

At each end of the focal beads I placed these ridged spacers, followed by ridged black glass oval beads, embossed spacer tubes, smooth black glass oval beads and so on...

Finally I used this "knotted" look toggle clasp.  It's beaded onto a black leather cord.

Greek Earth Set

This is the set I made my Mom for her birthday.  She wanted something striking, so I mixed semi-precious stones with a mixed selection of brown glass beads. The list of semi-precious stones include; amethyst chips, smoky quartz chips, lapis lazuli chips, and wooden agate beads.  The rest of the beads are; Czech fire polished light green glass beads, antique bronze spacers, and some lime silver lined spacers.

The pendant is "S" shaped light green veined Jasper topped with wooden rondelles that were off an old pair of earrings.

 

On the earrings, the beads are a mixture of glass shapes, amethyst chips and smoky quartz chips hanging from Greek metal pendants.

 

This set isn't for sale and cannot be recreated. Sorry. :(

Amethyst Chip Set

I bought this necklace for my Mom...

When I got into jewellery making, she asked if I could make her some earrings to match...

Not only did I make the earrings, I also made a ring...

...and a bracelet.

This is the whole set together.

Charity

My aunt has stall on which she sells toys and things to raise money for cats.  Occasionally I'll make her jewellery to sell out of old things I had lying around, or free gifts that I was given by my suppliers.  This is one of those sets.

The necklace and earring are beaded from a mixed bag of seed beads that I got in a mystery bag.  The "necklace extender" is the last bit of chain I had left after making the Colour Chrome Set.

The outer loops I made from beading wire and the inner loops are from an old pair of earrings.

Earth Day Set

I made my mom an awesome necklace for her birthday that used her favourite shades of brown and green.  I really liked the concept colours, so I decided to make myself something using those same shades. 

I've been trying to make something out of these topaz/brown beads for a while, as I wasn't that struck on them or the necklace they used to be on.  I'm not sure you can see it on the photos, but they have an AB coating on them, which makes them reflect lots of different colours.  Not bad for some old acrylic beads, eh?

Interesting fact:  Excluding the findings, the Butterfly pendant is the only thing that I bought to make this set.  All the other beads were ones I stripped off old necklaces.

I didn't want big, flashy earrings, with this necklace as I like my jewellery simple.

Materials Used: Silver Greek Metal Butterfly pendant, Acrylic topaz AB faceted drop beads, Acrylic gold round beads, Lime seed beads.