I’ve fallen behind with my YOJ postings due to a bout of creative block.  I keep picking up the wire and the pliers in an effort to make something, and end up with nothing but frustration and a pile of scrap.  Earlier this week I joked on Twitter that I was tempted to solve the problem by piling up my scrap, adding fire and Presto! A brooch!

One of my Job Jar jobs this week was to “Organize beads and materials in the studio”.  Translated, that means “Clean up the mess!”  So I started sorting through a drawer where I’d dumped a bunch of finished and half finished pieces.  Some went into a “for packaging” box, some into a “for salvage” box, and some went into the scrap bin.

Amongst the half finished pieces were a bunch of crochet balls I’d made two years ago.  I thought it might be interesting to set one as a bead in a ring.  Since I was just experimenting, I didn’t want to use silver, so I hauled out the copper wire to make the ring shank.

Once the bead was mounted, it occurred to me that it looked a lot like the little puff ball in “Horton Hears A Who” by Dr. Seuss.  So, I added a little garnet bead to represent the Who’s world.

More photos:

She wanted the necklace and a headpiece based on the necklace.

Since she was getting married in Scotland, she also wanted two Celtic-style pendants for her attendants – one based on a shield with a malachite bead, and another based on a treskele with garnet beads.

I got a follow up email from her at the end of last month. She was very happy with all of the jewellery.

Apparently the dressmaker loved the jewellery so much “she refused to allow me to put any kind of embellishment on the dress, because she said the necklace and headpiece were already the perfect compliment to it, and would take away from the overall effect.”

Here’s the bride wearing the headpiece and necklace, and another shot of the bridesmaids wearing their pendants.