Stringing Fool: chain

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Do-Over Challenge

Butterfly Fantasy!

Jeannie Dukic sponsors a challenge from time to time, where she offers a piece of jewelry from the early part of her design career to others to "do over." Visit Jeannie's Blog.

Here is what she sent to me.

Frankly, I like the design! But the double strand is rather short, at least on my neck! And while the butterflies are sweet,they are very insubstantial, and don't seem to interact with the lovely Swarovski crystal beads. I decided to give the whole thing a little substance and expand the color palette a little.

I colored the butterflies with Vintaj patina.

Then, I did the earrings too, although they were not technically part of the challenge. I added another crystal when I strung them on a pin. It just picked up the blue a little.

And here is the finished necklace. It is long, because I used all of the original chain. I added some pink and blue flower and leaf shaped pressed glass beads. I like my butterflies a bit chunkier in the body, so you can see some of the pink crystals wired to the center of each. (And another little bit of wirework, can you see it?)