The Beading Gem

Autumn jasper is an understated gemstone with flecks of green and red hence its name. Linda warmed up the subtle tones of these large nuggets with side-drilled carnelian ovals and even added topaz coloured faceted rondelles crystal beads. Silver-lined gold seed beads were a further variety to this mixed gemstone and glass bracelet suitable for all seasons besides fall.
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Leanne was decisive right from the beginning. She wanted jewelry that could go with anything so she cleverly used beads in the silvertone, bronze and goldish resulting in this exotic looking bare wire necklace complete with matching earrings.

She used silvery leaves, bronze dagger beads and gold flowers as the main beads. The additional beads were again silver and bronze. The overall delicate look is just what Leanne wanted!
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Reta let me photograph this paper bead necklace she made from a church bulletin when she was just 10 years old.

It's a time honoured way of making inexpensive beads from scrap paper. According to Paper University, Victorian women crafted beads like these from wallpaper around knitting needles. They then strung them to form curtains of beads. Paper beads were apparently wildly popular during the Great Depression when times were tough. The craft was also popular in the 60's and 70's too when I was very, very young! In short, they've been around for a long time and are still being made today.

If you've forgotten or have never tried it, Sandy Laipply's tutorial shows you how to make these beads. But they can be so much more than the recycled paper variety. Check out Wendy Kerr 's website to see some unusual artistic paper beads which she has painted and embellished on. Some of them even resemble expensive lampwork beads.
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One could not get more custom than this all chip necklace designed by Zita. She chose three gemstones. The first two gemstones, carnelian (orange shades) and red tiger eye possessed characteristically bold colours but both blended in well with the third gemstone, rutilated quartz in varying earth tone shades.

Rutilated quartz is quartz that has rutile inclusions. Rutile is the natural form of titanium oxide used in high tech alloys. It is prized in gemstones as they can looked like little darts of gold which explains its alternative names - Cupid's Darts, Venus Hairstone and Fleches d'amour. This gemstone has an often quoted metaphysical property - it is said to slow down the aging process!

References

http://mineralminers.com/html/rtqminfo.htm

http://www.bernardine.com/gemstones/rutilated-quartz.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutile

Big earrings are Sarah's style, the bigger the better! So she created this long pendant earrings made out of hematite cube beads and silver coloured beads which formed a drop shaped hoop. This was in turn suspended from a diamond shaped pewter connector which did just the trick to make her design truly unique!
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The diamond necklace mentioned in my previous post sold for $1,552,000 at Sotheby's Magnificient Jewelry auction!!

This fabulous diamond necklace with an almost 49 carat diamond pendant went on sale yesterday at Sotheby's Magnificient Jewelry Auction in New York to raise money for charity. The estimated price at auction is between $700,000 to $1 million.

Alexandre Reza, the Russian-born Parisian jeweler designed this for the stylish Florence J. Gould (1895-1983) who married the son of the industrialist J. Gould. She had a legendary jewelry collection to rival that of Elizabeth Taylor's. She bequeathed much of her estate to the Florence J Gould Foundation.

It was the baguette diamonds which form the flexible collar that caught my attention because it occurred to me that beaders could use beadwoven bugle beads to create a necklace along similar lines at a tiny fraction of the cost! A drop shaped crystal bead could be used to substitute for the diamond pendant.

Holly used diamond-shaped blackstone gemstone beads almost all the way around her necklace. She brightened her design up with the use of both red and silver-lined glass beads. The red barrel beads contrasted well with the blackstone not just in colour but shape. They were also the link between the larger blackstone with the smaller seedbeads.

The pendant Holly created suited her liking for clean modern design lines. She used two curved hollow silver tubes separated at the top and bottom with red cube beads with diagonal holes, somewhat like dancing cubes!
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This beautiful bracelet is going to be given to Susan's mother for Mother's Day.

It's lovingly made from square off white mother of pearl (MOP) beads and pearls. The Swarovski part are the rondelle beads, which bear the amethyst coloured crystals, sandwiched between two purple coloured pearls. Susan made the main elements of the designs "pop" up even more by placing tiny seed beads strategically between the pearls and the MOP. Attached to the Tibetan silver toggle clasp is a dangle with two pearls and two Swarovski rondelles.

Attention to detail and design always pays off!
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Twelve-year-old Phyllis is smitten after her very first experience designing her own jewelry!

She enjoyed the Inuit story about labradorite*, the Northern lights gemstone, so she added it to her pendant. It is the roundish blue-gray bead just above the square millefiore* glass bead. She strung the beads on a sterling silver wire with other pale coloured coordinating beads for a truly unique necklace.

* Please click on labradorite and millefiore for more information

Chris designed this necklace and earring set for her friend who also likes black. So she used round hematite and grey pearls like she did for herself (Beader Design #81). But she did not use the same size hematite beads so this set looks different from her own.

That's the beauty of making your own jewelry - the ability to custom something lovely to wear that is not like someone else's.
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These pink and green floral are refreshingly pretty to look at and wear. Belinda spotted these beads from Widgets' Beads' collection at our recent workshop and made up her entire bracelet almost all from these beads. The only accent beads are smaller seed beads in pink and silver in between the focal beads. Sometimes more is better!

Lampwork beads are individually made using torches to melt glass around a mandrel or metal rod. Different types of glass and colours are used. Murano (Italian) glass artists from the early Renaissance period were best known for this type of glass bead making. This art form is thriving today and no wonder as these beads, in the hands of superb craftmen and women, are masterpieces.

Susan loves bold bracelets and this colourful bracelet is just her style. The scrumptious colours and the striped and bumpy beads somehow remind me of carnival time.

She purchased the lampwork beads elsewhere but I am glad she brought it for me to attach a Tibetan silver toggle clasp. I could then take a picture of it and share.

Susan did everything just right with the sizing, variety, play of colours, careful spacings and patterns to come up with a final design that works!
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It seems odd on this frigid April day to talk about deserts but that is really the name of this type of specialty glass bead. Carol picked a grey desert sun bead as the main bead in her three bead dangle. As you can see, the cracked effect revealing the silvery colour beneath is what inspired the name. The other two grey glass pearls completed Carol's design. I wonder the thermometer would creep upwards if Carol wears these earrings more often?
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Christine made this colourful bracelet confidently and successfully teaming two distinctly bright colours, turquoise and orange together!

She kept the orange colour to a minimum whilst highlighting the bracelet with just one single giant cube bead. She also kept the cube theme of her bracelet consistent with the use of smaller turquoise cube beads spaced around the rest of her bracelet.
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Jewelry for cell phones is much more popular outside North America, particularly in Asia, although the idea may be catching on here. Geeksugar reported that the owner of the online store C'Elegance started selling designer cellphone jewelry after she visited Hong Kong and got the idea there. PopGadget also pointed another site by Yumi Chen which sells beautiful Swarovski cell phone fobs (left) for $30 each.

One of the most unusual cell phone charms has to be this tiny genuine cactus belonging to Sha Sha Chu . She explains on her Flickr site that the cactus hangs outside her pocket so it gets some sun. There are holes in the bottom which allows her to dip it in water every couple of weeks to water it!

So designing your very own cell phone charms is another idea for us beaders. Or for that matter, beaded key chains. I plan to get some cell phone lanyards etc so look out for those!
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Chris's daughter, Grace, I believe, designed this chandelier earrings for her mother at a beading party months ago. Unfortunately, one was completely lost but there is a happy ending to this story. I did still have more of the same beads Grace was able to make a replacement half. Phew!

Chandeliers come in all sorts of designs and colours. In this case, the dangles were all identical with round beads called druks between metal and purple beads.
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Teresa designed these earrings for Chris. There are two dangles in a light turquoise theme but with cobalt blue seed beads to just "pop" that design! Just the ticket for those who like blue - I read somewhere that 50% of people list blue as their favourite colour. So these earrings should please a lot of people!

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These picasso beads have swirls of colour that add interest to this anklet that Myrna made for her daughter. The design consisted of the square flat beads separated with coordinating seed beads. The small beads make this anklet dainty. Not only that, the neutral colours means that it'll go with just about any outfit.
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A beader asked if I had any jet. Jet is best known for its popularity in Victorian England. The fashion for this austere mourning jewelry was started by Queen Victoria who deeply mourned the loss of her husband, Prince Albert after he died of typhoid in 1861. For decades only jet jewelry was allowed at court.

Ashley declared that she had a whole new opinion of designing and designers after she spent the afternoon working on the design for this large hoop style and bead adorned earrings! The earring was further extending with a dangle. The metallic feather was a good contrast against the black round shell disc she used.

She may have wrestled with the design but it's always worth it to get what one wants in the end. The end justifies the means, as they say!
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Glenda had some tiger eye chips of her own which came from a broken necklace. She redesigned this visually pleasing necklace after some serious experimenting.

She wanted to add some spacer beads to compliment the tiger eye chips. She tried some jasper and black hematite tubes at first but in the end, went completely differently. She used beveled amber coloured flat oval glass beads which gave just the right contrast to the tiger eye chips.
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Yes, this is Teresa's second green earrings from the Widgets Beads collection. So it is really one of her favourite colours.

There are two strands, the focal leaf bead being on the longer one. The leaf shape certainly spins a different look to the earrings. Teresa added variety with different smaller beads, varying in shape, colour and size.
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The best thing about designing and making your own jewelry is that YOU get exactly what you like.

In Cynthia's case, she preferred delicate pieces. So she made a pair of dainty pink earrings consisting of tiny pink and silver-lined seed beads with a larger faceted pink glass bead towards the bottom. The pewter bead at the bottom picks up the other metal component of this design, namely the sterling silver ear wires.

The press is abuzz with news Christie's April auction of Magnificent Jewels in New York. Centre stage are the Baroda pearls, a double strand necklace of exquisite large natural pearls taken from a legendary Indian seven-strand necklace dating back to Mughal times. It became part of the collection of the 19th century jewelry enthusiast, the Maharaja of Baroda, Khande Rao Gaekwar (r.1856-1870). The clasp, a cushion-cut diamond is by Cartier. The expected auction price is $7-9 million.

The story of the Baroda pearls picks up with a latter day Maharaja, Sir Pratap Singh Gaikwad or more specifically his second wife, Sita Devi, whom he married in 1943. She was a flamboyant Maharani who outrageously flaunted the social strictures of her time.

The press labelled her as the Indian Wallis Simpson. Like the original Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor, who married King Edward VIII of Britain after he abdicated in 1936, she too attracted the attentions of a royal whilst still married to another man. Both women also shared a love for jewelry and neither was popular in society. Sita Devi simply raided the Baroda treasury for her own use and took many pieces permanently out of India. One famous item was the legendary 19th century Pearl carpet, woven with diamonds, pearls, rubies and emeralds. But the Government of India forced the Maharaja to return the Baroda pearls.



Many of the Baroda treasures were probably unrecoverable anyway as Sita Devi liked resetting her jewelry to suit her taste or selling them off. Above is a picture of her (picture source) wearing the Star of the South diamond amongst many in a modified version of the original Desden designed necklace.

K.R.N.Swamy in his article about the Maharani, writes about a 1957 society ball when the two women did actually meet. The Duchess of Windsor wore a diamond choker made from anklet jewels that Sita Devi had sold to the New York jeweler, Harry Winston. The choker was much admired until Sita Devi was heard loudly declaring that the jewels had look lovely on her feet too! The choker was returned by a humiliated Wallis Simpson.

Sita Devi's second marriage was eventually dissolved. She died in 1986 in France at age of 69.

References
Christie Press Release
Palace Picture reference
Laxmi Vilas Palace in Baroda (now Vadodara), still the Royal residence today:
Missing Baroda pearls at Christie`s by Kishore Singh
The most flamboyant Maharani by K.R.N.Swamy
Christie’s hit by curse of the £5m necklace by Dean Nelson
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