Andrew Thornton has some wonderful handmade pendants in his shop. Have you seen them yet? I really like his new 4-leaf clover (i collect 4-leaf clover things) and the wonderful owl. If you're like me and interested in how handmade pendants are made, you'll want to look at his shop listings. He details the process of making the pendants from the original molds to the final hand buffing.
The Raven
A couple of weeks ago while I was on vacation Andrew unexpectedly sent me an email asking me if I could choose any pendant for a blog project, which one would I choose? That's a little like asking me what is my favorite kind of chocolate! (Uh . . . all kinds?) After going back and forth between several choices, I chose the bronze raven pendant pictured here. If you look closely, you can see that it has a key in its mouth. For me, that was the clincher. I use a lot of keys in my designs, but I wasn't aware of it until someone pointed it out to me last week. While I like any beads and pendants with pictures because they make storytelling easy, keys mean secrets. And secrets always make the most interesting stories!
The Raven Necklace
I thought it would be a nice reflection of the raven pendant to pull out random beads and findings from my bead drawers as if they were treasures that I planned to tuck away in my nest. I used jewel tones of purple and teal, along with some white and brown
as neutrals. I chose a mix of shapes and textures with plenty
of sparkle.
For the beaded links, I used dogtooth amethyst, glass pearls, vintage Lucite from The Beadin' Path, smoky quartz, glass teadrops, faceted glass from my local bead shop, and Swarovski crystals.
The necklace also includes about two inches of leftover etched brass chain from Ornamentea, proof that no scrap is too small to use in a project. It also proves that you'll use everything in your stash eventually. I think I had those two inches of chain for at least two years, probably three or four.
I connected the beaded links with various Vintaj jump rings. You can make beaded links that connect directly to one another, but I like using jump rings because it gives the beaded chain a little bit more movement.
This necklace is not the most technically difficult piece I've ever made, but looking at it makes me smile. Sometimes that's all that really matters.
Standard Disclaimer: I received the raven pendant free of charge from Andrew Thornton for review on my blog. All opinions are my own. I was not compensated for writing this post, nor for the other materials I used in this necklace.