Here's pics of my newest necklace design. I used 3 bead netting for the straps. The beads are copper colored twin (2 hole)beads and seed beads. For the focal I started with a copper stamping as the back. I used leaf shaped glass beads to form the flower petals & drop beads for the center. The 6 fringes which hang from 3 two row seed bead loops  are made of  20 gauge magnetic copper wire coils that I stretched out & attached black crystal rondelles to the ends. Above the focal are 2 more of the rondelles flanking a fancy copper round bead.  I made the bail and the toggle clasp with the magnetic wire also. The ends of the straps have copper floral bead caps and more black crystal rondelles flanking  two more of the fancy copper rounds. I used copper jump rings to attach the clasp. I hope that you like looking at this necklace as much as I enjoyed making it. A lot has happened since I last posted. My friend Donna gave me a wonderful birthday party. It's the first birthday party I have had since I was a kid. Thanx Donna.  I stopped at the Bead Box in Brainerd for their going out of business sale. It's sad to see a bead store close.  I worked at the Twin Cities Bead Bazaar, which is always fun. And of course I bought some new beads while I was there. Last night I took my first lampwork bead making class. It's harder than it looks. I can see how lampworkers can get lost playing with the glass. The 2 1/2 hours flew by.

Another resistors necklace. This one I made for my friend Lisa. Awhile back I wanted to try something new & not usually thought of as jewelry. What I found was electrical resistors. In this necklace I put 2 pairs of resistors on 3 jump rings to create links. I joined the links with pairs of jump rings. Toward the back I used larger resistors singly. The end of the necklace has a silver tube bead on each side and then the toggle clasp. There is a story that goes with how I chose resistors. My husband was digging in his drawer & found his jar of "phone bugs". Let me explain what phone bugs are. Back in the '70's we had a friend named John. He had a brother-in -law named Charlie. Charlie often did things that were not very smart & for a while whenever we saw John he would say " you will never guess what Charlie did" This was back at the time when people were protesting the Vietnam war. Charlie went to several war protests & then he got the idea that the government was spying on him for his protest activities. Charlie went about cutting all the "bugs" (aka resistors) out of his phone & the 3 friends who he had gone to the protestor's with phones. We saved some of them in a jar & over the years we have laughed about them many times. When my husband pulled them out of his drawer the last time I knew that I had found my unusual jewelry item. The resistors are perfect. They have wires protruding from both sides and come in lots of colors & sizes.
              I would like to thank Heather Powers of   http://humblebeads.com/ for the photograph tip that I used today. She suggested using a piece of printer paper in direct sunlight for better pics. I thought it would create too much shadow but I tried it and my pics with the paper did come out much better than the ones without the paper. Thanx Heather. 

Hi, Today I am showing a double wrap bracelet. It has really soft suede in pink as the base. The beads are hematite and the thread is black silk. The clasp is a black button & the suede had a loop that goes over it. These are fun, fast & easy to make, & very much in fashion right now. I like pink & black together. I even took a pic of it on me. That is a first for me. Enjoy.

Here is my first Kumihimo bracelet. If you don't know what Kumihimo is , it is a Japanese braid. I chose Aqua, one of my favorite colors, and black, to make the aqua stand out. I used  silver plated bead caps & a toggle clasp to finish it off. I tied one of the seed beads at the end of the string for fringe. I wire wrapped the ends of the string above the fringe  with aqua wire to make it secure & I used two pair of 4mm jump rings to attach the clasp. I tried 6mm jump rings to attach the toggle first but, they were too big. I didn't think that one 4mm was very secure so I doubled them up. I am pleased with my first attempt. I will probably do more. Stay tuned to find out.

My jewelry pics today are of a necklace made with three bead netting straps. The gorgeous focal bead is by lampwork artist Jeff Barber.  At bead retreat Doris showed us how to do 3 bead netting with the new Czech  twin beads . When I had a couple of inches done I thought about Jeff's bead & I knew that they would be a great match. I even stitched the clasp. I didn't follow a pattern I just stitched until I had the look that I wanted. I have made clasps before but they were made of wire. I am proud of my first attempt at a stitched clasp. I will admit that I had to do a second toggle bar because the first one was too short. The pics were taken before I stitched the new bar. I peyote stitched a loop for a bail because I wanted to keep it simple to showcase the focal. The only accents are a couple of crystal bicones,  a couple of dark topaz crystal rondelles , &  4 seed bead fringe with bronze bicone ends.  I hope you like it as much as I do.