Going to Extremes

Check out how I'm rocking the new blog banner! Woot! Woot! Made by a friend of mine who is all genius-y with the graphic type stuff.

And now, on to the real blog post.

I was finally able to get outside (gotta love 80 degree weather in February!) this weekend and take some real pictures of my "Ice Forest" necklace design:






Plus, I added some dangles to the pendant area to help it tie in better with the rest of the necklace.






I didn't want to add TOO much, though, because I didn't want to cover up Dot's gorgeous pendant.






I also added a dangle detail to the clasp area.






I'm dedicating this piece to all my friends who are stuck in giant snow drifts and layers of ice while out here we're wearing t-shirts and going to the beach (tee hee!)


I guess after working with this really big and chunky beads, I felt the need to go to the complete opposite end of the spectrum:








I started with the amazing silver branch link component from Cathy Dailey and some Thai silver flower charms and just started adding from there.

I had these great vintage German glass flowers and some smaller Czech glass flowers and leaves in my stash that were perfect to add that touch of "first spring flowers" peeking through.







Here's a closeup of the branch component.

It's funny, this started out to be part of the "Ice Forest" necklace show above, but I just couldn't get the design to come together. Finally, something clicked in my brain and I realized I was looking at two completely different necklace ideas. They didn't want to be blended together in one piece, they wanted to be separated into two distinct designs.

Once I realized that, everything fell into place very easily for both pieces. There's some kind of design lesson in there somewhere and if I could figure out how to put it into one concise statement, I would, but I guess the brain is all worn out from being all creative and stuff so, you're on your own to get something "lesson-y" out of my meanderings if you can.

I keep thinking there's something of an Asian feel to this piece, but I'm not sure why I'm getting that vibe. I wanted to reflect that feeling in the name of the piece, but I couldn't figure out a way to do it. I decided to go with "Spring Meadow", but I'm open to suggestions because that's kinda weak.

Happy Tuesday! I'm going to go put on some sun-block now ;-)

KJ