Jewelry Redo

I re-strung my Viking beads over the weekend. Nothing fancy happened, but I made these changes:

•  I removed the wood beads and the "rockier" stone beads (jasper, agate)

•  I added more red glass beads and some clear ones

•  Tried to keep only glass beads and glass look-alikes (like clear green fluorite)

•  I graduated the beads so that the larger beads are in the center of each necklace and the smaller beads are towards the ends

•  Instead of making one big necklace loop which is looped around my brooches, I made two distinct necklaces and affixed them to a pair of metal hoops which hang from my brooches like distributors.



Here's what it looked like before, when it was one big necklace:

BEFORE

And here's what it looks like now, with the hoop distributors:  

AFTER 

The necklace hangs longer, and the two strands lie more smoothly this way.  I can also clip my little raven pendant off to one side instead of hanging it from the necklace itself.  Not shown is a small pair of scissors and a large needle charm I put on a chain to hang from one of my brooches as well.  

In the future I'd really like to bring in more cobalt blue glass, and more lampwork beads.  In December I'll be attending my very first Flameworks Guild meeting, where I'll learn to make my very own glass lampwork beads!  I'm so excited.  I'm hoping to come away from that class with enough [blue] beads to replace the metal spacer beads I'm still using, but we'll see.  

What's Next? 

Yea, and a case to put it into...