Friday 30 May 2014

A necklace for Megan

Over Easter, Xander and I went down to South Wales with my other half, Chris, so that I could meet his family.  Whilst we were down there we had an absolutely lovely time.  We visited Swansea and Llanelli and went to have chips on the beach at Mumbles.  It was glorious.

Chris' sister and her husband have three rather beautiful children, one of whom asked me if I would make her a necklace.  She and her Mum had a look through my blog and my Facebook and she really liked the Ombre Cabouchon Necklace that I made a few months back.  She told me that her favourite colour is blue so I knew exactly which stone to use, because what 7 year old girl doesn't like sparkly blue goldstone?!

A simple twisted herringbone rope with silver lined clear and blue iris delicas was the perfect foil - made big enough that she'll be able to wear it when fully grown as well as now. I decided to go against making one of my usual clasps in favour of using a silver magnetic clasp, just in case she got caught on something though.  In the end, I really liked it and didn't think it a design compromise at all!


I posted it to her as soon as I made it and got a lovely telephone call to say thank you and a really pretty picture of her wearing it, which was a real treat. 

Sunday 25 May 2014

Mummy's Shape Up Bracelet

Mummy has been at it again...  She has been playing with Tila Beads and decided to see if she could use them as the MRAW start to make all sorts of chunky different shapes.  Once she'd made a handful she decided to sew them all together and voila, a gorgeous Shape Up bracelet!

The bracelet below is the original gold and gunmetal design that she used.  Not colours I'd ever put together but my goodness it works!


Here you can see all the shapes laid out and how deftly put together they are.  This bracelet is delicate but chunky.  It doesn't slide, just sits close to the wrist and the look totally depends upon which of the elements you have showing. It's a very comfortable bracelet and doesn't interfere with anything you're doing. 

Then the cheeky minx that is Mummy decided to have a rummage through my opaques because she decided that where the gold and gunmetal was elegant and grown up, bright keleidoscopic colours would turn the same bracelet into something entirely different! And doesn't it just?!  It's playful and fun and I love this so much more than the gold one above.  It's reminiscent of Liquorice Allsorts (yummy!) and that makes me think of happy summer days playing in the garden when I was little.


In this final picture below you can see how Mummy has used a dressmaker's popper for the closure.  A simple little tab for one half and the other half sewn to a baby square.  So lovely and so seamless when on.