Monika Wiklund

I made this necklace to use with a pale green cocktail dress for an agent-themed party that we were invited to earlier this year. The plan was to achieve something that would fit into a James Bond movie, and I think that this necklace is a pretty good approximation considering what I had to work with and how much time I had to come up with something.

The necklace is made using the RAW technique and consists of different sized metal spacers and pale green transparent semi-precious beads with a few larger faceted rock crystal beads in the center. There is also a matching bracelet which I do not have any pictures of but I think that both the necklace and the bracelet fit perfectly together with the cocktail dress and we had a great time at the party.

Photography by Kristian.

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.

I really like these twisted metal pipes, and even though this is a very simple pattern and not that different from an earlier necklace that I ave already posted about, it is still possible to make many variations of the theme and I think that this one turned out very well.

This version is made with two different sizes of faceted stone beads, placed three and three between the twisted metal pipes with a larger stone bead in the middle and one smaller bead to either side. I am not sure if it is a correct name but the stone beads were called cinnamon stones when I bought them, which I assume refers to the very nice golden brown color of the stones. As you can see, the colors vary quite a bit from an almost transparent golden color to a pretty dark cinnamon one.

Photography by Kristian.

This is an illusion cord necklace, but it is very similar in style to some string necklaces that I have posted about earlier. I have made necklaces with illusion cord  earlier, but I do not think that I have posted any of them here. In my earlier version I have mostly used fresh-water pearls, while this necklace is based on seashell and stone beads and have the further addition of the flowers and little hearts as a focus in the front.

If I remember correctly, one of the flowers is made of obsidian and the other is made of black stone but unfortunately I cannot remember which one is which. The round beads are a mixture of obsidian, white jade and seashell beads, while the small hearts are glass beads with a black lining or filling. The smaller flower is originally made to hang from the larger flower together with the small hearts, but when I used the necklace for the first time I realized that it looks much better to hang it over the illusion cords next to the larger flower but I have not fastened it, which makes it possible to choose how to wear it.

I love the contrast between the black and the white beads and also the floating effect that is created by the illusion cord. Perhaps I could have made the necklace a little bit shorter, but I don’t think it is too long to use and I have used it myself several times.

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.

Pink and purple usually go well together, and this necklace is made of rose quartz, amethyst, and garnet beads combined with a mix of other pink and purple beads that have been left over from earlier projects. The necklace is based on the RAW stitch, but in the final row I added one extra bead to each group of four to create the flower patten that you can see in this picture.

I like the flower pattern effect, but there are a bit to many extra beads in the final row, which causes the necklace to curl up a bit instead of lying flat around the neck. As usual when I use the RAW stitch with semi-precious stone beads, I choose to use illusion cord rather than thread since the thread tends to break more easily if the edges of the holes in the beads are a bit sharp.

Photography by Kristian.

I have already mentioned this bracelet in an earlier post, but since I did not have a picture of the bracelet at that time I decided to post this now.

This bracelet is made using the same technique as the earlier post, but this bracelet is wider with three rows of beads of varying sizes instead of only one as in the first necklace. Using larger beads in the middle row gives the bracelet a slightly rounded contour, and I think that it adds a lot to the overall impression. Of course, it is possible to use the two bracelets together and I think that they also fit pretty well together with the stone necklace I posted about a few posts back.

Photography by Kristian.

 I made this collar necklace as a variation of this stone necklace that I posted about a little while back. The earlier necklace was made almost entirely of round stone beads, and I figured it would be a good idea to try out the same technique with beads of different shapes as well.

For this necklace, I used hematite cube beads, matte round onyx beads, faceted hematite-colored glass beads, and some round black and silver desert sand beads. I think that the combination of round, faceted and cubic beads works perfectly together, and I especially like the contrast between the matte onyx beads and the shiny hematite. 

As with the previous necklace, I used the RAW stitch for this neckalce and the different sizes of the beads also helped create the rounded shape that fits perfectly around the neck.

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.

A very nice and slightly different stone necklace made from three different kinds of stone using the RAW technique. I started working on this necklace after I made a bracelet using similar beads, and I thought that it might make a cool pattern with the black/gray snowflake obsidian and brown/black mahogany obsidian beads in lines radiating out from the middle while the shiny hematite beads are mostly used as spacers between the rows.

What creates the rounded shape of the necklace is the increasingly larger beads. The inner rows have 4 mm beads, the middle rows are made from 6 mm beads, and the outer rows are made from 8 mm beads and large snowflake obsidian chips.

Unfortunately, I made the necklace a bit too large to fit around my neck without tying a knot before locking the ends with the toggle clasp, but since my hair is long enough to cover the clasp I guess it doesn’t really matter. It took quite some time to make the necklace so I do not wish to rebuild it unless I have to. I also made a simple RAW bracelet from the leftover 4 and 6 mm beads, but I do not have any picture of it.

Here is also a picture of me when I am wearing the necklace with a brown and gray summer dress, which I think makes a pretty nice combination.

Photography by Kristian.