Wednesday, April 01, 2009

The Midori necklace...

I have not been blogging for some time since I got a really nasty headcold and have been staying most of the time in bed. Actually, I caught it from Mark but, while he seems to be improving a lot every day, I am still very, very ran down and feeling quite bad.

However, this last Saturday, I made a necklace after some days of inactivity. I called it Midori (Japanese for "green"), due to its colour and the fact that I really love the word: Midori!


For Midori, I have used:

- One Murano-style gold-foiled glass heart as the central piece;
- Small stardust antique gold spacers under the heart, as a base;
- Several small faceted pyrite beads;
- Several green gold-foiled Murano beads and some smooth green ones;
- Several Swarovski bicones in different shades of green;
- Two medium-sized green dragon veins;
- Two large faceted synthetic quartz beads;
- Two teardrop Czech Fire beads;
- Eight small green agate beads near the clasp;
- Ten small Czech Fire faceted beads in gold and green;
- One antique gold Tibetan hook clasp.

Details as follows...


The first picture shows the glass heart, surrounded by two pyrites, dragon veins, Czech teardrop bead and Murano gold-foiled round beads interspersed with some Swarovski bicones. The heart is probably Chinese. It is Murano-style but not Murano as such, since I consider Murano as pieces that are handcrafted in Murano, Italy. I call "Murano-syle" anything else that uses the same technique but is handcrafted elsewhere. China, in this case. The second picture shows the top section of the heart in more detail, where the stardust spacers can be seen underneath.


On these pictures we can see the Murano beads , gold-foiled and smooth, with the Swarovski bicones in-between. On the second one, a detail of the pyrite faceted beads and more of the bicones. Pyrite is Iron Sulfide, popularly known as "fool's gold", due to its resemblance with gold, specially in its natural/brute form. It has a lovely effect in jewelry with its yellow brassy shades, and a strange, almost pungent iron smell.


Details of the dragon veins, some of the green agates, pyrite bead and Swarovski bicones can bee seen on the 1st picture. The 2nd one shows more of the Murano beads and the lovely iridescence from those Swarovski elements with AB coating.


Detail of the pyrite beads and Swarovski tourmaline bicones, and a picture of the upper sections of the necklace, showing the Muranos, Swarovski bicones, synthetic faceted Quartz beads and pyrites.


The dragon vein bead is show in detail here, along with the pretty Czech Fire teardrop bead...


Detail of the back of the heart, and the clasp in a hook shape.


Here we can see the faceted synthetic quartz beads in detail. I decided to post these because I love the reflections and glow produced by the Swarovski bicones and quartz! Could not resist!

6 comments:

  1. wow, that's gorgeous! And the photo is gorgeous too! *waves hi* so much pretty jewelry!

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  2. Hi Kuri! Thank you so much for the lovely comments! That's basically what I've been up to lately and it's great fun! My latest one was the Tanabata. Glad you like them!
    a.

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  3. it looks like great fun :) gorgeous stuff! there's a bead shop near me, but I'm trying to learn to cook before I take up any new hobbies.

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  4. it looks like great fun :) gorgeous stuff! there's a bead shop near me, but I'm trying to learn to cook before I take up any new hobbies.

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  5. Hiya Kuri! I bought some Japanese beads (vintage, and loooovely) on eBay some months ago. They are made in Osaka these ones, in the 60's, very, very pretty. I have a box here full of these. I also use some Miyuki Delica seed beads in some of the pieces and they have the most gorgeous colors and finishes.
    You should try beading a bit - it's very therapeutic, very relaxing!
    How about the cosmetics?? Aby exciting findings these days?
    :P
    a.

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  6. Hiya!

    Maybe I will start small :) I have some jade trinkets from my dad that I'd like to re-string; I'll do that first.
    I also have some pretty stones necklaces from my aunt that are too heavy for me to wear; I'd like to turn them into bracelets instead.

    There're always new cosmetics that I want to try, but I need to use up the so-so stuff before I can buy new stuff. I still have a lot of stuff to use up, so there isn't too much exciting going on. I have finally figured out how to use pencil eyeliner so that it doesn't smudge, but it still creases after a while, so the search for a good liquid liner continues.

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