Monika Wiklund

For some reason, I don’t always post pictures of the bracelets I have made, even if I post pictures of the matching necklace but here is an exception.

This is a variation on a RAW bracelet, where I have used a combination of round gold-colored metal beads and fresh-water pearls. For the center of the bracelet I used small rice-shaped pearls and for the edges I used side-drilled coin-shaped pearls to make them stick out farther to the sides which creates this simple but elegant pattern.

I started with making this bracelet since I did not have enough rice-shaped beads to make a necklace, but I have since bought some slightly larger pearls and made a matching necklace. However, there are no pictures available yet, hopefully I will be able to post a picture later.

Photography by Kristian.

When I made this necklace, I was trying to make something to go with some medieval/viking style clothing that I am working on, and I selected these large glass beads and metal beads together with my sister who knows more about the style than I do. I know that these beads are probably not historically correct, but that is not very important to me since I only wanted to create something that emulates the medieval style rather than something that is completely correct.

The large metal rose pendant is very cute and I think that it is great in combination with the other beads in the necklace and even though I made this necklace with medieval style clothing in mind, I think that it also very easy to match with modern clothing and it has become one of my favorite necklaces.

Photography by Kristian.

This necklace was actually my first try for making a necklace to go with the dress I borrowed for my sisters wedding. I wanted something to match the green pattern along the edge of the dress and that would match the medieval fantasy theme of the wedding, and I think that I succeeded fairly well in my intention even though I also made a second try which was the necklace that I ended up wearing for the wedding.

When I tried the necklaces together with the dress I decided that I wanted the longer necklace with dark stone beads instead, even though this one also works very well  and is perhaps more thematically correct.

The necklace is based on a few large dark green glass beads that have been left over from earlier projects together with a glass bead mix of smaller green beads and some gold-colored metal beads and spacers between the larger beads. I tried to compose the necklace with the larger beads slightly spread out over the necklace and with a seemingly random mix of smaller glass beads and the metal beads and spacers in between them, and finally I selected one of the larger beads, a silver-foil heart, to use as a pendant.

Photography by Kristian.

This necklace started as an experiment in making a flower out of these flat, drop-shaped seashell beads. I used illusion cord to sew the flower together, and put one silver-colored glass bead on each side of the flower to keep the petals flat and to add a bit of contrast to the brown seashell beads.

Once I had the flower figured out, I started thinking about how to combine the flowers and make a necklace, and pretty soon I came to the conclusion that a nepal chain would make a nice complement to the flowers. The nepal chain is wide enough to be noticed between the flowers but not so big that it takes the focus from the seashell flowers. Of course, I wanted the colors of the chain to match the colors of the flowers, but to make it a bit more interesting I inverted the colors so that I made the “stems” of the chain brown and the “flowers” silver-colored.

I think that it is a pretty good concept for a necklace  and I really like the color combination, but it was a bit difficult to get the flowers even, especially the first ones I made. Also, the nepal chain tends to twist around a bit and not stay flat like it is supposed to, but I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, but rather I think that it adds  to the charm of the necklace.

Photography by Kristian.

Here is another chain necklace that I have made. I have lost count of how many versions of chain necklaces I have made, but it seems there is always some new materials and variations to try and also the chain necklaces are pretty popular so I tend to not keep them for very long. This is a fairly simple combination of a thick silver-colored chain, some small round and triangular moss agate beads, and a larger moss agate pendant.

I like the dark green color and the moss-like threaded pattern in the moss agate, and I think that they look pretty good with the thick chain even if the small round beads are barely noticeable in comparison with the chain and the larger triangular beads.

Photography by Kristian.

This is a necklace and bracelet made of black and silver-lined crystal twisted bugle beads and seed beads, small black glass cubes, black cloisonne beads, small round metal beads, and metal snowflake charms.

Several people have been interested in this design and I have made at least three copies of this necklace and bracelet, two with the snowflake charms and one with small flower charms instead. I do not think I have any of them left, but I might make another one some day.

Three wires with jaspis chips, turquoise howlite chips,  and turquoise chips bound together by twisted metal beads.

By using three wires, the necklace gets a lot of volume, and the metal beads holds the wires together to give an impression of volume.

Probably the first necklace I made with freshwater pearls.

It is based on white “rice” fresh-water pearls of varying sizes, with small round metal beads between each pearl.  There are also a couple of small metal flowers and butterflies between some of the pearls, and the stars are made from white seashell. The bracelet has a common lobster clasp, while the necklace has a toggle clasp.

Hopefully, a better picture will replace this one at some point.

This is a  necklace and bracelet kit made from white and silver-lined crystal seed beads, round metal beads and a small metal flower, hematite chips, and white quartz and agate nuggets.

The bracelet is made from memory wire with the same seed beads, round metal beads, metal flower findings, and hematite chips as the necklace, and is the only part of the kit that I have left.