Building a necklace

Several months ago I chose a bunch of new components from Artbeads.com to review as part of my blogging partnership with them. Yesterday I was finally able to sit down and finish the necklace I started way back then. How the heck does time pass by so quickly?

For this piece I chose a beautiful porcelain butterfly wing bead as my focal. I thought it would be fun to combine it with my own porcelain pieces and see if I could make it work harmoniously. I like the result quite a bit! At first I was focused on the whole butterfly theme and then I decided to just scrap that idea and not pay attention to the butterfly at all. I just focused on the colors and the structure of the wing design and then I was much happier.

I used mother-of-pearl rings and some Czech glass beads along with copper wire to create a sort of celled structure. I did something like this a while ago and have always wanted to explore this idea a little more. The celled structure of the butterfly wing gave me just enough inspiration to give it a go.

I chose this beautiful silk ribbon to tie the whole piece together. Typically I am not a huge fan of using ribbon in my work. I know, sounds weird, especially since I do love how it looks. But for me it is more a matter of longevity. The historian side of me tends to wonder where my pieces will be 100 years from now and this ribbon doesn't really work into that equation. At least in a functional, durable kind of way. However, I'm living in this moment and I am quite happy with the ribbon on this piece. It provides a nice splash of color that ties the piece together and also gives a softer edge to what could potentially be a rather ridged necklace.

Disclaimer: I was sent these components free of charge to honestly review. I was not paid to do this.