Seven strand of vintage bone beads, clasped with a brass hook. They probably came from a garage sale.
‘Only $1? These are decent, I can cut them up and make something.’
But somehow I never did.
Tag Archives: simple
Wednesday, August 10th
10 Aug
Knotted on red leather, these old African amber beads host a cast brass Frozen Charlotte and a single undyed Kukui nut.
Off-center, just the way I like it.
Tuesday, August 2nd
2 Aug
This vintage glass bead necklace is made of turquoise-colored beads and a pendant in the same glass. I love that simplicity.
I wore this today layered with a necklace from April.
I like simplicity, but layered.
Thursday, July 28th
28 Jul
Sometimes when you have something really great you don’t need to do much with it. That face pendant is in a much-loved deep jade green color. I just looked at it for a long time and put it with many other items but never committed it to a necklace. Finally, I decided I needed to wear it anyway. Simple brass chain comes to the rescue. I can’t say this is a forever design-I may put this pendant somewhere else some day.
The ceramic face pendant is by Gaia Beads.
The amazing enameled ring is by Ndidi Kowalczyk of Hothouse Posey.
Thursday, July 20th
21 Jul
It is hot here this week and I feel like I can barely be bothered to dress at all. I want to wear a single layer of linen from head-to-toe and haunt shady places all day.
Duty calls, though. There are meetings, library books to return, that darn google+ to figure out. I had to dress.
This necklace used to have a too-large, too-busy pendant that I cut up years ago. It does feature some Japanese wound-glass beads in red and white, plus vintage coral and crystals. The strand itself isn’t busy-just cheery.
Perfect for a day like today.
Monday, July 11th
11 Jul
This necklace consists of 18″ of .5 mm leather finished with crimp-on leather ends and a clasp. The leather is just looped through the ceramic charm and I can change the charm out.
It’s not really a permanent design – although I rarely remove this charm I could. I wear necklaces like this mixed with others and usually I am planning on doing something else with the pendants or charms.
Today we were packing for a week-long trip to the mountains. My day was a whirl of decisions; take these sheets? how many towels? do we need all the hula-hoops? books? sweaters or sweatshirts?
Putting on a simple, single-charm necklace felt quite peaceful.
Friday, July 8th
8 Jul
This necklace is a whopper. Gigantic resin beads strung on red leather with a single, blown-glass Venetian bead off-center.
Yummy. I love giant necklaces like this. Very Wilma Flinstone.
Not very Wilma; the bra and slip straps showing with this sundress.
Don’t worry, I wore a tasteful cardigan over it to work. For photographic purposes I ditched the cardi and now, looking a the tell-tale straps I am regretting that decision. This necklace, however, I will never regret.
Tuesday, July 5th
6 Jul
This necklace is one I sold quite a lot back in the dawn of pre-history.
Okay, maybe in 1998.
I was making and selling jewelry to various boutiques around the country and since the internet hadn’t yet been invented and the whole idea of costume jewelry that was NOT bright gold with giant fake stones was a novelty this was a popular little fetish necklace. That’s what I called these; Fetish Necklaces. There were other animals, all were constructed in a similar manner. The intention was that you’d layer this up with several other fetishes.
Because way back when, neo-Victoria, steampunky, romantic tribalism was totally new. Okay, maybe what I mean is that it was uncommon. There were a few of us out there; Kaari Meng, Arlon, Jill Schwartz and others. We made fancy romantic jewelry you could wear with a pair of silk-velvet overalls, a striped long-sleeve tee shirt and laced-up Gibson-girl boots. I had lots of black eyeliner, an armful of sparkly bracelets and crazy big fuzzy hair.
Okay, so nothing much has changed there except for the eyeliner.
This necklace is made from two stamped brass fish, back-to-back, with silk organza ribbon and a wrap of seed beads and wire. I am almost embarrassed to say that this little beauty sold for the wholesale price of $21. Now, the ribbon IS 32″ long, so you can wear this long OR short. There is a small amount of glue there holding the fish together should the wire-wrap ever fail. And did I mention that it was SILK organza?
But still, $21? That makes retail price somewhere around $42.
Wow.
Wednesday, June 29th
29 Jun
This carved pendant is made of dark brown jade.
The double fish symbol is considered good luck in China.
I made this pendant when I was pregnant with my daughter and wore it all the time. What could have been luckier?
.5 mm black leather cord, vintage red glass beads, jade pendant. Closed in the back with a hook-and-loop closure.
365necklaces 