Life is full of turmoil right now. I need my jewels for their power-not just their beauty. They need to convey specific messages.
These two necklaces are in daily rotation. The ‘butter me up’ knife is by Jennifer Bethleune. It is on a chain with a clasp.
The skull-and-crown charm was a gift from a friend. It is knotted onto waxed linen and then knotted onto my neck. I’ll have to cut it off or wear it until the power is exhausted.
I’ve been wearing it for a week.
‘Mom, you should wear a necklace I made for your blog. Here, wear this one, it matches your dress. Let me put it on you.’
Necklace made by Cleo. Brass peace sign, fire-polished glass, finished with a lobster claw clasp in the back.
Today I wore two necklaces (as promised) but honestly, I do this a lot.
The shorter choker is from the old days and I made it as part of a collection I did for Bedizen called Vegas Wedding. We had a lot of love- and wedding-themed charms and that desert palette. The necklace is strung on memory wire, a product I really like for making chokers. It can be worn with out actually choking the wearer.
Kinda important.
Those beads are a mix of Czech glass and some vintage 40’s carnelian glass rounds that I had a 10 lb. bag of at one time. I used them in so many collections I thought they’d never run out. Sadly, they did. Bone dice, stars, flowers are from China. The small red beads that are coming off the memory wire strand are real red coral from back before we realized we shouldn’t be making important animals like coral into beads.
Those painted ceramic bird beads? I had forgotten all about them and now that I remember them I dug out the name of the folks I purchased them from. I think I need more.
The orangey long necklace is made of many, many strands of silver-lined red glass beads. It’s really a hank; strung on cotton thread and knotted. It was a gift from a friend after I came to her wedding ceremony. It’s really pretty and I don’t know if she knew I would wear the hank just like that or she thought I would restring it. I like it as-is.
It’s a perfect summer necklace as it’s bright and really disco-looking but also doesn’t actually match a single thing I own.
Currently that ‘not quite matching’ element is very appealing to me.
This necklace was a gift from my friend, Denita. It is a glass box that holds a tiny paper collage. Every time I wear it I get asked about it. I lilt that it’s detailed but large-scale, delicate but dramatic.
A busy day with only a meeting in the morning followed by an afternoon of cooking for 19 guests…what to wear? Ahh, my Susan Lenart Kazmer dice-and-lightbulb charm necklace with sterling rolo chain and Kazmerian balled wire bail. Of course.
I love this necklace.
See, my last name is pronounced ‘dice’ even though it’s not spelled that way. Plus I love polka dots. Plus I like black and white.
Ahh…
Do I look completely exhausted? I should. This picture was taken at about 2:30 am after hours of a store reset. I was covered in dust and paint. This necklace had been on my neck all day and I really should have been smart enough to take the picture earlier.
I wasn’t.
The necklace consists of a charm that is a hollow glass drop holding watch parts. It looks like a weird old fuse, but it’s really just a new pendant. A Raleigh artist made it (his name escapes me…) and I really wanted to order more for the store but he disappeared. That happens a lot with glass bead makers, by the way. They are great, talented, fun to talk to…and then they are gone. Off to Boone, or Burning Man, or Boulder.
Anyway, this necklace originally had a pendant down one side that said ‘poseur’ but that broke. I made it for a staff craft challenge at Ornamentea and it was kind of a personal joke. The steampunk-ish pendant, the gunmetal, the vintage button and that word, ‘poseur’ all are a bow to the fact that even though I design jewelry that many think of as Steampunk (whatever that is) I’m not exactly Steampunk. I do like the modded, pre-industrial ray gun now and again but then I don’t own goggles. I guess I’m more goth, but not really. I mean, I love black nail polish and big, thick black shoes but I also own brown clothes. And flowery prints. Maybe I’m more of a hippie except I can only stand the Dead on rare days and I shower even when I’m camping. With my chickens and love of home gardening maybe I’m a country neo-hipster (I do live downtown!) but no, I never wear skinny jeans and I don’t voluntarily drink PBR.
What were we talking about? oh, yeah. Poseurs.
Way back in the day, a black-clad, Souxie-listening me would have defined that as anyone who was not totally INTO whatever they were into. Youth subculture was so rock-solid when I was 19. There was no fluidity, except when there was. A poseur was something you did NOT want to be called. Fake. Faking it. Pretending. Bought your gear at the mall, pre-ripped jeans and pre-pinned tights. Even if I did want to wear a pink flowered dress with my Doc Martens I wouldn’t have. We were years from Courtney Love and besides, I lived in Ohio. After a while I got married and moved to Austin, TX.
Suddenly, I was a married middle-school teacher living in a place where black clothes could KILL you. It was hot. Very hot.
I bought a flowered dress and some love beads and decided to bend genres. Became a post-goth, cowgirl hippie. Grew up.
NOTE: this post and then next few are being published AFTER the date I wore the necklace. I never promised you an up-to-the-minute rose garden. I said I’d wear a different necklace every day for a year. Life has intervened and I didn’t press the button to send these posts into the interwebs. Enjoy them now, all in a row. It’s like skipping the regular broadcast and catching up with Netflix.
AND one other thing, that is possibly the worst photo I have ever taken. It was not the photographer’s fault!
Today I wore two necklaces. I have been avoiding this as I really want to stretch out my favorites but I had a big day planned and I really needed to feel comfortable and suitably adorned.
I wore these necklaces with a raspberry-colored shirtdress and olive green platform shoes. It’s kind of an odd combination but the dress seems put together and crisp, and the shoes are a bit funky. Seeing as how I have orange stripes in my black hair a vibrant color combo shouldn’t be completely unexpected now and then.
The shorter necklace was a gift from my friend Joan. The turquoise discs are very good quality, clear blue American turquoise. The vintage button clasps the beads and can be worn front or back.
The longer necklace features a vintage carved cat made into a pendant by Susan Reynolds of Bijoux Savvy. She created a tiny, sparkly beaded collar for the kitty. The sides of the necklace are made with Elaine Ray small washer beads strung sideways with gold-colored SoftFlex and dark raspberry-red Toho seed beads. The necklace is finished with leather cording and a brass clasp.
I didn’t realize how often I layer necklaces until I started this blog. Almost every day I want to add a second or third necklace but I haven’t until now. It’s funny, I almost never make multi-strand necklaces.
I wonder why?
This pendant hangs from a gingham ribbon. It was a gift from friend. She created it with etched copper and lucite, riveted together around a dictionary definition. She created it as a keychain but I removed the key ring and strung it on the ribbon. I never added a clasp; I simply tie the ribbon.
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