Jewelry Design Post Mortem

I think it's important to post not only the great stuff and designs I'm proud of, but also to post those which went tragically wrong. I do this in the hopes that future disasters can be averted and poor innocent beads spared from the doom of lives lived in ugliness.

Therefore, without further ado, I give you:

Sigh. I know...the horror...the horror! But, I promise it didn't start out to be a bad thing. Which just goes to show how easily a good idea can quickly go bad (especially in my hands).

It all started with these beautiful daisy beads from LeAnn at Summers Studio. Gorgeous, right? I know. Then, I went through my stash looking for anything that would work with this yummy teal color and I found these great apatite coins that I'd forgotten I had and I really wanted to work them into the design. I also wanted to use silver - not only because it's my favorite metal, but because I'd already done two daisy designs in brass and one in copper and I was concerned that the potential buyers for these pieces (a group of little old ladies who are my mother's friends) might not appreciate the base metal (in fact, if they are anything at all like my mother, I KNOW they won't). I wanted to have some variety.

So, I put the big daisy pendant in the middle and put the smaller, 2-hole daisy charms on either side (where the silver flowers currently are), but the whole thing just didn't seem to work. Of course, I didn't decide that until after I'd already strung the entire necklace AND crimped the crimp beads so I was sort of stuck with it unless I cut it apart and resigned myself to wasting all that beading wire and the crimps.

Which I wasn't able to do (not to mention that I hate, hate, HATE re-doing stuff).

HATE IT.

So, I took the big daisy pendant off and ended up using it to make the copper and shell donut necklace that I posted last week.

Of which these are the earrings that go with (excellent grammar usage, no?)

I had to post one more pic - at least something in this post has to be non-gagworthy.

So, anyway, back to the ugliness.

After removing the big daisy pendant, I was left with the two daisy charms. Whereupon I had the brilliant idea that I could still salvage this necklace by putting one in the center and then adding the silver flower charms.

Yeah...not so much.

So, now, I've not only wasted all the beading wire and crimps, but I've also wasted some sterling silver wire that I used to wire-wrap the dangle hanging from the bottom of the daisy.

Nothing wrong with the clasp, though. I hereby declare that this necklace may only be viewed from the rear from now on.

The earrings are actually okay by themselves, too. I think I've decided that the daisies just cry out for either brass or copper. The silver seems to kill them - it's too cold or something.

I haven't decided what to do with ye olde necklace of disasterness, but I did make this with the other teal daisy charm:

This...is not that bad. I love the hand-dyed silk ribbon that runs from deep teal, to seafoam, to champagne, to molasses to chocolate brown and back again.

I added a few brass charms and some indicolite Swaro crystals. I'm still on the fence about the crystals, but I felt like it needed a touch of sparkle.

Also, I think if I did this again, I probably wouldn't knot the ribbon to hold the charms on. I think I'd just weave it through a link in the chain and then hang the charms with jump rings. The ribbon might show a little bit better that way.

The other think I like about this piece is that it's quite a bit more "dainty" than the other daisy necklaces I did, which I think adds some variety in what I'm going to offer my mom's friends. I do still wish I could figure out a way to get more precious metal involved - I have some oxidized sterling silver wire that might work. Still, these pieces seem to just need the warmth of the brass and copper.

Okay, that's it for todays design dissection. Stay tuned for tomorrow when I provide a replay of this weekend's experiments with metal, hammers and liver of sulfur. Ooooh...scary. Just in time for Halloween!

KJ (who still has a cold, dernit!)