Showing posts with label nature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nature. Show all posts

Sunday, July 31, 2011

Creation of a Tree of Life Forest

I described in an earlier post, my Biblical tree of life pendant necklace, inspired by a passage in the book of Revelation.  Since then, I have created over a dozen more trees of life pendants.  I decided to create a post about them, because a few days ago, one of my co workers referred to them as my “signature item”.

My various trees of life are definitely among some of my favorite handcrafted pieces.  I first saw the pattern for them in a Beadstyle magazine and wanted to give it a try.  After examining the pattern though, I thought that the 3mm rondelle crystals used in it gave the tree kind of a “shrunken” look.  So, I substituted 4mm round Swarovski crystals to serve as the main decoration. 

At first, the seasons inspired me in creating my trees.  For spring, I used lavender and tanzanite crystals to represent blooming purple flowers, while I utilized emerald and fern green crystals for the lush summer foliage.  Indian red and smoked topaz crystals served as the bold changing colors of autumn and for winter, I used white opal crystals for snow covered branches, with blue zircon crystals as the ice at the tip of it.  Here are some examples of my spring and autumn trees.




Then, I decided to expand my little forest by creating a wide variety of fruit trees!  So far, I’ve created apple, blueberry, lemon, orange, plum, and grapefruit trees.  My favorite of these has to be the lemon tree as you can see, the yellow is brilliant.



I’m always looking for ideas for new trees and so far, I’ve thought of nut, blackberry, cherry and coconut trees.  You will see these new additions to my little forest in the near future!

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Metamorphosis of an Idea into a Beautiful Butterfly Necklace

It all started with a forgotten pendant.  I had purchased a beautiful aquamarine butterfly pendant from Michaels, when I first became seriously interested in making jewelry in 2009.  However, I could never really find a use for it, especially since I had to make a handmade bail for it, which was beyond my skill level at the time. 

A couple weeks ago, I had resigned myself to the task of sorting and organizing my beading supplies.  I stumbled across this pendant again and I suddenly had the thought-wouldn’t it be neat to see this butterfly resting on a flower? 

With that thought in my head, I decided to create a cluster pendant with colors to resemble the petals of a beautiful flower.  First though, I formed a handcrafted bail out of sterling silver with a topaz Swarovski crystal to represent the middle of the flower.  Then, using padparadscha and rose water opal Swarovski crystals for the pink petals, I wire wrapped them to jump rings, with the butterfly pendant dangling down from it.  Here’s a picture of the actual pendant:



For the actual necklace, I wanted the strands to imitate the lush green of flower stems and leaves.  I created several wire wrapped links using Swarovski crystals in various shades of green (Pacific opal, chrysolite opal and fern green).  In addition, I used small portions of sterling silver cable chain to connect the pieces as shown below:


I love how the necklace turned out and I hope to create more beautiful pieces reflecting God's creation in the near future!