Monika Wiklund

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.

When I bought the metal parts for this necklace, I had not noticed the position of the holes and as a result they have been lying on my desk for quite some time before I finally came to think of this design. I used illusion cord and the RAW stitch to make this bracelet using the metal spacers, small purple faceted glass beads, three large purple faceted glass nuggets, and seven large faceted rock crystal nuggets.

Since I only had six of the metal spacers, I had to use more of the nuggets to make the bracelet fit around my hand without having to add a clasp, and this is why I decided to use the purple glass nuggets to avoid having to put two rock crystals next to each other. I like the way the light reflects and shines in this bracelet and since I am pretty fond of purple, I think that I will be using it fairly often.

Photography by Kristian.

I think that lava stone beads work very well in combination with different semi-precious stones and I have made several necklaces using this theme. The earlier necklaces have been in more discrete colors, but I really like this combination of bright red coral and matte black  lava stone together with the heart shaped cinnabar pendant.

For this necklace, I used three different sizes of coral beads and two sizes of lava stone beads together with some cute metal spacers and a simple round toggle clasp. I really like the colors and the beautiful flower pattern of the pendant, but for some reason I haven’t used this necklace very much so far.

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.

Here is another version of this purple seed bead necklace that I posted about a while ago, but in blue instead of purple. Of course, the pattern is not quite the same in this necklace, I used slightly smaller seed beads in this version and I selected the colors to match the hues of the blue resin pendant. The darkest of the seed beads are selected to match the color of the faceted glass beads and to contrast to the lighter blue shades of the pendant. A cute detail is the small apple blossom clasp that I picked because I think that it matches the flower pendant.

This is a close-up of the very cute blue flower pendant with the apple blossom clasp in the background. It is also possible to see the small faceted glass beads with dark blue filling that I used as spacers between the different sections of the seed bead patterns.

Photography by Kristian.

Here is a necklace that I have made from rhodonite and lava stone beads. The pattern is simple, but the colors and patterns of the rhodonite beads make it more interesting to look at. Perhaps the colors are a little bit paler in real life, but I really like the combination of pink and black.

As you can see, I put some metal spacers and a few round metal beads between the stone beads of the necklace and I used a dark metal heart-shaped toggle clasp that I think match the darker colors of the lava stone beads. The pendant was made from a flower-shaped  rhodonite bead that is combined with a small bead cap and a lava stone bead on a hat pin, and then I added a few more lava stone beads on separate eye pins that is hanging around the larger flower to give it a more three-dimensional feeling.

Even though I seldom wear pink, I have actually tried this necklace together with a black tunic with a pattern of pink, purple and grey flowers and I think that it was a pretty good combination.

Photography by Kristian.

This is a pretty simple necklace made of sodalite and lava-stone beads interspersed with copper-colored spacers and pipes. The slightly twisted pipes creates a three-dimensional effect that is what makes the necklace noticeable. The twists can be seen in the picture, but it is even more evident in reality. Unfortunately I discovered that the holes in the beads and in the spacers are larger than the outer dimension of the pipes,  something that causes the beads and spacers to move along the pipes unless I use glue to stabilize them.

Photography by Kristian.

I made this necklace to go with a white top with a pattern of small blue flowers of several shades. It is a pretty short and thin necklace, and it is almost a perfect match for the top.

The idea came to me when I was looking at the small, flat, oval lapiz lazuli beads, and I was trying to think of something to do with them. I started to look through my always increasing collection of beads and I came up with the small, faceted, rectangular zebra jasper beads and figured that the combination might look good with the top I mentioned earlier. To create some distance between the different beads, I added the “double” metal spacers and finally I selected a simple magnetic clasp to complete the necklace without drawing attention to the clasp.

This is a very simple necklace, but the material and combination of the beads create a complexity of its own and I am very happy with the result.

Photography by Kristian.

If you have looked around a bit among my earlier posts, you might have realized that I like to work with natural materials such as lava stone, semi-precious stones, coral and wood and this is another example, using lava stone and emerald nuggets. Not too long ago, I found these emerald nuggets in one of the online bead stores where I shop for beads some now and then and I just had to buy a string and see what I could make of them.

Since the emerald nuggets are dark green with even darker, almost black patterns I decided to combine them with some lava stone beads to make this necklace here I have used one of the nuggets as a pendant and a few other mixed in with the round and barrel-shaped lava stone beads and silver-colored bead caps to make the base of the necklace. I am pretty satisfied with the result even though I think it might have been even better with a slightly larger nugget for the pendant.

After I had completed this necklace I had the opportunity to visit the physical store where I bought the emerald nuggets, and I bought another string of smaller emerald nuggets that I have yet to use. I think that I will combine the different sized nuggets and create something with more emeralds in, but I have not quite finished my mental picture of that design yet.

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.