Monday, January 2, 2012

Secret Santa Revealed

I am so excited that my Secret Santa finally received her package! I had to mail it to Australia so it took a while to get there...especially with the holidays! But now I can post some photos of the choker and earrings that I made for her:





The choker is my own design that I just sort of made up as I went along. I knew I wanted it to be black and purple for Emma so I just started playing around with my beads and picked out some 3mm Fire Polished Rounds and Czech 13/0 Charlottes for the RAW chains. I also embellished the RAW with Bicones and Charlottes on the chain connecting the 3 Rivoli Focals.

These Focals are Swarovski Amethyst Rivolis that I bezelled with Peyote Stitch using black Delicas and Charlottes with a few Metallic Purple 15/0's for a touch of color. I embellished these with Netting and some Swarovski Amethyst Bicones.

Then I connected all the pieces and added some Fringe and Drapery with Charlottes, Bicones, Fire Polish Rounds and Daggers...

The clasp is a simple Button and Loop closure...the button is a bezelled Rivoli and the Loop is several rows of Peyote embellished with some of those Metallic Purple 15/0's for a little extra color.

The earrings are a simple design I saw in an email from Margie Deeb. I don't remember what they were called though...it was a photo for an online class I think! I used Crystal Rondelles in a Metallic Purple, Black Charlottes, Swarovski Bicones and Czech Daggers in a Metallic Iris color that went well with the Metallic Purple Rondelles.

I also added some tubes of Miyuki 11/0 and 15/0 seed beads in colors that I knew Emma would like...and some Swarovski Rivolis and Bicones and I think some Miyuki 1.5mm Cube Beads...and some Czech Pressed Glass Beads in a beautiful Cobalt Blue color.

I totally went over the $10 spending limit with this but I had so much fun with it! When I found out who's name I had, I was so excited because I knew we both had very similar tastes...so it would be easy to make something that she would love! And she sent me a photo of herself wearing the choker and it is a perfect match! So that made me very happy to know that she loves my gift and that it looks so pretty on her!

I love these swaps...they are so much fun, especially when everyone participates and follows through on their end of things!

Now I am off to finish up some Christmas presents...I know it's really late for Christmas but my family still hasn't celebrated yet! Our schedules are just too crazy...so maybe this coming weekend we will finally have our family Christmas get together!


2 comments:

Karen Anne said...

Wow! This necklace you made for Emma is exquisite! I don't do much beading work but love stringing necklaces and doing wire jewelry. After seeing your stunning necklace I am starting to think I should try RAW.
Would you ever consider making a tutorial?

Tia Dalma said...

Thank you so much for the compliments Karen! It is always nice to connect with people from all over the world who share the love of beads...so Thank you for finding and reading my diary!

I have not written any tutorials, but I definitely believe in sharing our knowledge with others...as long as we are ethical about it!

I would love to be able to share techniques and designs here in my Diary, so I will see if I can write this up in a simple tutorial...this may take some time but I will look into it!

And honestly this really is a simple design...and if you break it all down into separate components it is a project that even a new seed beader could manage!
Thanks again and Happy Beading!