I have been pondering how best to make use of some of the findings, beads, and charms I have accumulated over the past couple years, and this is the result of another evening of experimentation. I am not entirely pleased with everything here, but for the most part, I hope it is interesting.
Up first is a necklace made from black nickel bits and bobs. Instead of jump rings, I have split rings. These devilish little buggers are like miniature keyrings only a few millimeters in diameter, and they are beastly to split apart and slide into position, but once they are in place, they are solidly in place. They won't be a point of failure here!
The pendant is made from some metal beads, an amethyst (or perhaps purple-dyed quartz) bead, and a head pin with a round head. I made an eye to connect to a split ring that in turn links to the gears.
The gears are a pair of pieces with spiral spokes placed back-to-back so the spirals went different directions. It reminds me slightly of a mechanical dream catcher. That reminds me of another story... But meanwhile, here at the necklace picture, you can see how I linked the gears to a chain with more split rings. Then I added a lobster claw clasp to finish the job.
I also had a length of copper chain that looked useful, but I wasn't set on how to use it just yet, and it was too long for a single necklace. So I made a simple piece first using a key charm with clockwork bits on it. It used the clasp that came with the chain.
Of course, that left some extra chain that was too short to make another similar piece, so I got creative and took some leftover faux turquoise beads made from dyed howlite and strung them on some eye pins. I then discovered I was out of copper jump rings. Fortunately, I had the ends trimmed from the eye pins, and was able to make some ersatz jump rings using my round nose pliers. They came out pretty good, I think. And this was the perfect way to employ the three large (12mm?) and four small (10mm?) beads I still had on hand, too
The next necklace is an experiment, and it turned out to be a lot more tedious than I expected. I bought these 6mm diameter garnet beads at Michael's on sale, and thought it might be nice to add them as embellishments in a chain. I have a large quantity of this fine silvery chain on hand, and some beads would make it more interesting.
Tangential tip: This is the stuff to use for modifying miniatures for war games and role-playing games if you ever need chains for anything!
Since I have just enough of a perfectionist to annoy both others and myself, I wanted these to be spaced evenly. It is a pain in the ass to count links on fine chain, for the record. But I managed. I even got clever and had lengths in increasing increments of 3 to add some visual flair. It was not a good use of my time, though. I also found these smaller beads difficult to secure nicely on the eye pins and then form good eyes. I broke several wire eyes in the process, too. That meant re-doing something that was a bit frustrating the first time, which is exponentially more frustrating. However, I managed to link the eyes to the chain itself instead of adding jump ring links, which did still make it look halfway decent in my humble opinion. The only jump rings are at the nexus of the chain and pendant, the charm, and the clasp.
I'm not sold on the butterfly charm, so if I run across anything else I would prefer to use instead, I will swap it out.
As for earrings, I kept it simple. I have no idea who might want earrings that pay homage to tobacco, but these pipe charms and crackled quartz beads might appeal to someone out there.
And last, but not least, here are some cute little owl charms suspended beneath jasper beads and a rhinestone spacer.
If any of these catch your interest, make an offer to buy in the comments section below before the payout period on this post ends! All photos taken clumsily with my obsolete Android phone. Apologies for inconsistent lighting, focus, etc.