Monika Wiklund

This is yet another variation of a chain necklace using a rough silver-colored chain, purple silver-foil beads, and faceted amethyst beads. The colors are very similar to this earlier necklace, but the composition and materials is more similar to another pair of earlier necklaces.

Photography by Kristian.

These blue and gold dice beads have been lying around waiting to be used for some time now. I bought them because I thought they were kind of cute, but then I didn’t get around to actually using them until recently when I was trying to figure out what to do with some other left-over beads.

This is the result, a combination of round and dice-shaped blue and gold glass beads, small tube-shaped gold colored spacer beads, round dark blue glass beads and gold-sand beads, round blue cloisonne beads, and some rectangular lapiz lazuli beads. The beads I had were just enough to make this necklace and a matching bracelet, but I only have pictures of the necklace.

The round and dice-shaped beads are not quite as transparent when you look at them in normal light, but I like the way the flash lights them up in these pictures.

Photography by Kristian.

What makes this necklace different from other chain necklaces I have made is the beaded ball pendant that I made from 30 cube beads. I wanted to make a chain necklace from the green silver-foil beads that I had lying around, but I had nothing that I could use as a pendant and since I had some small cube beads in the same color I decided to try out the beaded ball description I had found a bit earlier.

I think that the beaded ball turned out very well, and that it fits in nicely with the rest of the necklace but it was a bit tricky to get the shape as close to round as was possible.

As you can see in the first picture, this is a fairly short chain necklace which is why I also added a small toggle clasp in the shape of a padlock.

Photography by Kristian.

This is yet another chain necklace, but compared with the last one this is much bigger and with a bit of a rough feeling to it. I used a pretty big gray silver-foil heart as a pendant, added some rough flat silver-foil beads in the same color together with a few diagonal hematite squares with small round purple amethyst beads inside, and joined the parts together with a simple and slightly rough chain.

The result was this rough and simple, yet somehow elegant necklace, and I really like the combination of the rough silver-foil beads together with the more delicate and elegant hematite and amethyst beads.

Photography by Kristian.

As you might have noticed, I have made a lot of chain necklaces, partly because they are relatively easy to make and partly because chain necklaces are pretty popular so that I don’t have that many left anyway. This one is made from a thin chain with ovals and rings, some pretty nice metal cage links, mint-green silver-foil beads, and with a mint-green silver-foil heart as a pendant. Even though most of the necklaces are following the same pattern there is some variation in the colors, size and shape of the chains, and in the materials for most of the necklaces.

This is a close-up of the pendant and part of the chain of the necklace, it is a bit light, but I think that the color is pretty close to the real thing.

Photography by Kristian.

This is a necklace that I made a while back but that I have not had any pictures of until now. It is a fairly short chain necklace with faceted blue glass beads, a couple of blue window beads, and a millefiori star pendant. The chain is a thin silver-colored mother-son link with a simple hook clasp. I like the blue color of the beads, and the millefiori pendant is a bit different from what I normally use in my designs which makes it a bit more interesting than just another chain necklace.

Photography by Kristian.

Angel necklaces are very popular, and I think that this is my fifth or sixth variation of the theme. I think that I have only posted one of them here earlier, but the other ones are very similar except for the color and small variations of the beads. The one I posted earlier is blue, and the other variations are in different shades of pink and purple but are otherwise very much alike the blue one, except that I used angels instead of  glass-foil hearts in those necklaces.

The main differences between this necklace and the earlier ones are that I found a new version of angel wings with the cute little hearts in the middle, that I used another kind of seed beads that are larger than in the earlier necklaces, and I used bugle beads as well in this necklace.  also, as you might notice, the head of the pendant angel is different from the rest because I only had four of the red faceted glass bead, and I decided to go with a faceted blue gold-sand bead  for the pendant angel rather than try to find something of the same color.

This is a close-up of one of the matching earrings that I made for the necklace. Of course, since I do not have any holes in my ears I cannot use them myself, but I think that they are very cute anyway.

Photography by Kristian.

This is another one of my experiments with seed beads, using the RAW stitch to make a torque-like necklace.

I started with creating a “ladder” with twisted black bugle beads and metallic pink seed beads, and then I figured it would look pretty nice if the torque was wider in the front so I added a couple of rows of the small black glass cube beads to create the rounded shape of the necklace and widen it and then I added the final row of bugle beads, but I had to add a few extra seed beads between each bugle bead to keep the rounded  torque shape.

Unfortunately it seems that the metallic pink color of the seed beads rubbed off a bit as I worked so many of the seed beads turned out more silver-colored than pink before I was done. I suppose I have to make sure that I use better seed beads the next time I try something like this…

The result did not quite turn out as even as I would have wanted, but I believe that it is a nice concept. Of course, it took a bit of time to stitch the beads together, and it also required a slightly larger amount of beads than is needed for a “normal” necklace but I am fairly certain that I will try something like this again.

Photography by Kristian.

This is a rather delicate chain necklace made from a thin metal chain with small flower links and some pale blue silver-foil beads. It is not very long, and because of this and the lightness of the chain, I believe that it might be suited for a young girl.

I buy most of my materials online, even though I love being able to touch and feel and look at the beads I buy if I get a chance, and so also with this chain. Sometimes what you get when you buy materials online is not quite what you expected, and if I recall correctly I thought this chain would be slightly larger, but I think this necklace turned out fairly well anyway. It is  challenging and exiting when you get some materials that are not quite what you expected, and I love to expand my horizons and try new things with them.

Of course, most of the time I don’t really have a plan when I buy different materials anyway, or only a very vague idea of what I would like to do with them. It is when you have everything in front of you and you start combining things and look at what you already have that the ideas come.

Photography by Kristian.

I used a rather discrete color scheme for this necklace, using a combination of a gray stone pendant, facetted needle agate beads af slightly varying shades of gray, grayish blue glass beads, and a thick chain with antique finish. The stone pendant is not quite as dark as the picture implies, and I think that the necklace works very well in combination with dark clothing.

I am not quite sure what kind of stone the pendant is made of, but I really like the slightly uneven pattern and I think it is about the right size and color to combine it with the other stones and beads of the necklace.

Photography by Kristian.