I admit when Sam, my partner, sent me the focal I was not sure what to do with it. It’s way more freeform than what I work with. I tend to make very graphic, straightforward beads and my designs tend to go from those. I asked my much trendier kiddo what she thought of the bead and she was surprised I hadn’t seen it was obviously a sea bead and needed a lovely sea treasure theme. I decided to go with that and wired up a very simple chain necklace with a few of the pale stone nuggets from the bead soup to go along with the pendant. I added a handful of tiny turquoise rounds here and there.

If I end up taking this apart and redoing it, as happens a lot with my more complicated jewellery, I’ll do a little fuller multi-strand piece I think. The barrel orientation of the focal had me flummoxed but I’m catching on. You could go full shipwreck treasure with this bead.

I convinced Chloe to model the necklace for me. She made the suggestions for the design that I eventually went with so it was only fair. The very serious face lead to me telling her to smile which got me the frowny face and then, finally, the smiley one. Thus is life with family modeling my stuff.

I am posting this Friday night my time with just the one piece. There were a few other pieces from the accent beads on my studio table half done and, if I make it to the shop on Saturday, I’ll finish a few others up and add them to this post. In particular I want to turn the quartz nuggets into earrings at least.

You can get a look at what Sam Waghorn, my partner in the Bead Soup Blog Party this year, made on her blog or maybe her Facebook. Want to see the other blog hoppers? The whole list is on Lori’s Pretty Things blog.