Monika Wiklund

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.

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.

My last post was about a necklace that I made for my husbands aunts 60th birthday. As I mentioned in that post, I made two necklaces for her, and this is the other one. It is a simple but elegant necklace consisting of a large rectangular sardonyx pendant and a chain made from “filled in” links, and since the chain is not long enough to fit over the head without a lock of some kind, I also added a simple star-shaped toggle clasp.

I am very happy with the result, and I wouldn’t mind making some variations of the theme if I can find similar pendants or large beads.

Photography by Kristian.

This necklace together with one I will post about later were both made as birthday gifts to my husbands aunt for her 60th birthday, and since I do not meet her very often I acquired the help of my husbands cousin in order to pick a suitable style for the necklaces. She helped me a great deal and this necklace is a variation of an earlier necklace I made with fresh-water pearls, lapiz lazuli, and a sodalite pendant that she believed would be appreciated.

I had  given away the earlier necklace to a friend, and thus I made this new variation where I used a drop-shaped lapiz lazuli pendant in a large round beads cage and placed a flower-adorned clasp next to the pendant at the front of the necklace. The clasp is turned the wrong way in the picture but it is still possible to see the outline of the flower and leaves.

Unfortunately, I was not able to go to the party myself, but I have been told that she appreciated the gift.

Here is a close-up of the lapiz lazuli drop pendant in the simple round spiral bead cage.

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.

As you might have noticed, I like semi-precious stones and minerals, and in this case I have used tigereye, tiger iron, and lava stone beads to make a fairly long necklace with a heart-shaped tigereye pendant.

The oval long beads down close by the pendant are the tiger iron beads, the rest are tigereye or lava stone beads with metal bead caps. Perhaps the pendant is a bit small for the length of the necklace, I might consider remaking it some time and make it slightly shorter as well as maybe move the tiger iron beads farther away from the pendant. Otherwise I think that the beads fit fairly well together, and I was rather happy to try the tigereye cube beads with the diagonal holes. I found them in the form of a necklace at a local store close to my work, and I love the luster of the beads so I bought a necklace that I have taken apart for the beads.

This picture gives a closer view of the pendant where the shifting colors of the tigereye can be seen quite clearly.

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.

This is a necklace made of amazonite, alexandrite, lava stone, and cinnabar together with silver-colored metal findings. in the lamp light I use while working on my jewellry, the amazonite and alexandrite seemed to be much closer in color than they actually are, so I was a bit surprised when I had completed the necklace and looked at it in another light. Even though it was kind of a mistake, I still like the contrast between the light purple of the alexandrite together with the light green of the amazonite, which is why I have not remade the necklace.

The pendant is a rectangular cinnabar bead with a dragon on either side, and I combined the amazonite and alexandrite with round and oval lava stone beads interspersed with the metal findings. The lock is a simple silver-colored toggle clasp, and the necklace is made with bead string.

Photography by Kristian.

I think I have gotten hooked on using semi-precious stones for my necklaces. The more I use different kind of stones, the more I like them.

This necklace is made from round lilac stone beads, lava beads, raw rectangular nuggets of amethyst, and a polished amethyst pendant. I like the combination of the lighter purple in the lilac stone, the darker and more shifting colors of the amethyst, and the counterpoint created by the black lava stones.

I used small silver-colored bead caps for the lava beads, but the pendant is hanging from a darker metal holder that matches the simple dark metal toggle clasp. The necklace is strung on a dark bead string.

Here is a closeup of the pendant, and you can also see a little bit of the amethyst nuggets.

I think this necklace will become one of my favorites.

Photography by Kristian.

I have made this necklace and bracelet specifically to match a white, brown, and purple skirt that I have. The minute I saw the brown and white stone beads, I knew they would be a perfect match for this skirt, and the amethyst nuggets perfected the match.

Colorful stone necklace

I am not sure what kind of stone the brown and white beads are, but I think they might be some kind of jaspis.

For the necklace I used one large amethyst nugget as a center piece, and smaller thinner nuggets with the holes at one end between each of the white and brown beads. Every second brown and white bead is coin shaped and the others are twisted ovals. For the hanging beads, I only used the coin-shaped beads.

Close-up of the necklace

The bracelet uses the same brown and white stone beads, but rather than the smaller amethyst nuggets, I used larger nuggets that are hanging from the bracelet between some of the brown and white beads.

Matching bracelet

The beads are linked with each other using eye pins, hat pins and some small rings.

Photography by Kristian.