Year of Clay – Flower on a Necklace

I have been making these tsumami kanzashi-inspired, faux fabric, clay flowers for almost 4 years now. And I have made many, many hundreds. Have I used more than a few? No. They sell even as ‘beads’ at shows but I don’t think I’ve done a thing with them. So I decided this after noon I would turn the larger one from the weekend’s batch into a pendant one way or the other!

clay kanzashi necklace

I stared at the pendant for a while and was lacking inspiration – I am out of practice with jewelry design! – but I didn’t think my usual leather choker was going to do it for this one. In the end, I settled for two strands of glass beads. The pendant is large enough (about 2.5″) to hide the front clasp attachment and the necklace is nice and light.

3 Responses

  1. Elaine that is simply gorgeous! I love the simplicity of the design and how the emphasis is on the pendant. (Where it should be.)

    I know what you mean about jewelry design… Sometimes I get making beads and find myself ‘stumped’ when it comes to what to do with them. I find if I just spend a chunk of time focusing on making jewelry with my beads, the inspiration comes back.

  2. Thanks Cindy!

    And you’re right, about the inspiration for jewelry design. It does come back if I work on it a bit.

    The bead shape in this case (I made many that were much smaller, some under an inch) is so unusual I wanted to make a few designs up to show to people / give people some ideas before I try to sell them online. Sometimes I find people a little concerned about buying the non round or lentil shapes because of that, they are unsure how to design around them.