Confessions of a Crystal Hoarder Blog

The January Box contents could have been called “A Plethora of Purple” just as easily...but madness really captures this month so far. I’m writing this entry as I wait for my airport shuttle (aka: Melissa) to arrive. I don’t know how the universe can sense that I am going out of town, but somehow it can. And so, it throws anything it can at me to make the week or weeks leading up to a trip as busy as possible!

The month started out all calm and easy going...at least compared to all that holiday chaos. My first necklace was also calm, and easy going. I used vintage lucite cabs from the treasure box in sew on prong settings that I grabbed at a show. You can find similar ones in the Prong Settings category of the Findings section of the website. The photo is item #20864. I used two wires in each setting prior to securing my cabochons. I formed a wrapped loop, then threaded the wire across to the top, made a simple u-turn around a toothpick (to make sure I didn't pull too tightly), and headed back to the bottom for another wrapped loop.

I used chain for this necklace, but it could have been more bohemian looking with a mixed collection of pearls, or stone beads. Ooh...turquoise chunks might have been fun…

And I went with shiny silver- nothing rustic looking here!

Next I hit Russian Spiral again. Well, no, that’s lying. I had an unfinished sample of Russian Spiral where I was experimenting with increases and decreases in the UFO drawer. I had seen some of Carol Cypher’s African Helix work with increasing and decreasing diameters and more curl, and wanted to see if I could get the same look without using African Helix.

The overall effect is of multiple strands bound by spiraling drop beads. And that UFO just happened to be a perfect color match for the purple rounds in my box, and looked great with endcaps from a previous month. I’ve used them as traditional endcaps, but I’ve seen them used as beadcaps at the top of fringe units on vintage jewelry. For the clasp, I dismantled a link from round brass chain, and punched a hole in a stamping for the toggle.

My box had two copper findings that were like a cross between a normal bolo and some sort of massive tube. Each was a rhombus, so I lashed them together to form a chevron. Then I set to filling them. I dismantled copper chain from boxes past to form my ends, and used copper bugles #17738 (I hope that more are uncovered soon) and metallic delicas for accents with over eight 14 gram tubes of size 11 and 8 matte metallic purple iris seed beads!

And yes, this necklace has some heft! The finding can slide to adjust for head size, but it’s certainly not going to get saggy. And it left me with a fresh supply of empty tubes to refill.

I had fun just handling the hank of purple seed beads in the box. Tubes make my stash orderly, or more to the point, less tangled, so I do typically tube my hanks. But before I tube, I love just looking at the way the hank flows. I wanted to show off how they change as the light hits them, so I used wiggle wire for permanent hills and valleys.

Well, it’s about time for me to head off to a place that much like my bead hoard, or the Bead Hoard, looks really chaotic to an outsider, but is logical and flowing to those who live there. See you when I get back from