Dangerous Necklaces!

Thank you Ian, for letting me drag you to the local bead store. Baubbles and Beads––one of my favorite places––was calling to me while I slept, and thus I had to give in and buy some new materials. While the lavender dries and my sachet project remains on hold, I’ve delved into some fun beading rampages. You might ask, “did she just use the word rampage to describe her seemingly low-key beading projects?” Yes. Yes I did. When I bead and make jewelry, the adventure is as perilous as extreme ironing while hanging from the face of a cliff.

While my hands are in the fray of whirling needle nose pliers, flying shards of wire, and exploding glass beads, my soft fleshy hands are always in danger of getting injured. My right index finger was a casualty when making my latest creation. I took a nice piece of metal and managed to jab it painfully into the pad of my finger. There is now a rather intriguing looking red line that goes from nail to knuckle.

Although Brian well knows that I am often a hazard to myself, I am pleased to say that my injuries have been worth it. I finished a fun new necklace! In my defense I would like to say that I was trying a new beading technique and thus my dexterity was somewhat compromised. Inexperience often leads to my greater injuries, however after that struggle I am now wonderfully improved. This necklace was my second attempt at using chain instead of beading with chord or wire. In my opinion, jewelry that exposes chain is rather pretty when the chain is high enough quality. When using a chain that has a stylish design the jewelry often looks very finished and elegant. If you bead with cord, the whole point is to cover the relatively unattractive cord with shiny beads to make a necklace. With chain you want to show it off.

Attaching the beads to the chain was the hardest and most dangerous part for me. You have to slip the bead onto the wire, make loops on both ends of the bead to attach to the chain, and then you have to curl the free ends around to secure the bead and make sure it doesn’t come loose. I apologize for describing this so terribly, and I hope to make amends by adding a picture.


All in all the project was really fun a.) because I got to try something new, and b.) because I have very few long necklaces, and I can now proudly add this to my collection. I spent an inexcusable amount of time looking in the store aimlessly for a pendant to dangle on the necklace, but they were all sooo expensive! Instead of buying an overpriced pendant from Baubbles and Beads I found a cute (and cheap) one from forever 21. It was on the ugliest chain I’ve ever seen so I maliciously snipped it off and added it to my own necklace. Technically I cheated! But whatever :) I’m a corner cutter <3