Confessions of a Crystal Hoarder Blog

Ah, yes…March…when the trees try to kill me, and we get another box of goodies from the Bead Hoard Curiosity Club.

Perhaps it’s all that pollen that led me to design with gold-tones this month, or perhaps it’s the lingering chill, but more likely…it’s just what I was feeling this month.

The first thing I do each month when a fresh box arrives is to sort and bag the contents. It’s typically during this process that I decide which parts I’ll be using first, and what sort of design mood I’m in this month.

This necklace developed during the sorting process. The colors reminded me of baroque architecture, while the developing texture reminded me of stacked stone walls. Although in hindsight, perhaps it was “red touch yellow, deadly fellow” that haunted my psyche!

There are a few beads that did not come from the March box…the brass-colored vintage faux pearls and the thicker oil-slick colored glass beads came from previous boxes, but I am proud to say that every bead on this necklace is from my Bead Hoard Curiosity Club boxes! I wear shorter necklaces, when I do actually wear necklaces, typically between 18 and 20”. This one’s 24”, and I think it would be a nice pairing with a chambray shirt…a little rustic, but just a little elegant as well.

Suzanne posted a preview of this cabochon on Facebook before the boxes went out. Which reminds me…if you are on Facebook, stop on by the AGOS page and like us…there’s many a glimpse into new stock and the freshest news.

Anyhow…I had vowed not to use it. Seems contrary, yes? It had already garnered fanfare and my thought was “all that glitters isn’t gold” and I wanted to pass it up and hit something that may not be on the top of everyone’s hits list. And I guess it’s true, all that glitters isn’t gold… sometimes it’s brass! The vintage cabochon won me over, and I mounted it on brass filigree. Then I paired it metallic beads from the Hoard and petrol Swarovski pearls. To keep the focal piece in place, I filled a few of the hollow metal beads with resin to weigh them down.

I bought this strand of peanut/farfalle beads as soon as they appeared in my local shop thinking I wanted to use them in a Russian Spiral necklace, but their variation and texture was a good contrast to the white faux pearls from our boxes. Once I got the necklace together it was just a little too ho-hum for my liking.

I’ve been hoarding brads as they pop up on the site and opted to use some as an accent. I guess you could say I wanted to put my best foot forward!

Vintage brads can make great spacers since their prongs are typically much longer and stronger than modern scrapbooking brads.

I used my roundnose pliers to bend the prongs into loops on my pair of ballet slippers, and slipped them around the strands, closing the loops to secure them. The brads are really light, so they don’t travel around to the bottom of the necklace.

I made this bracelet on St. Patrick’s Day Eve…or put less poetically, March 16th, but what fun is that? The copper plated cheerios were one of the items I picked up at the show. And yes…I will be driving to Winston-Salem for the special show on April 20th, but I intend to SHOP! I will be the person slowly agonizing over which bags to get when I realize that the back of my SUV may not be big enough for everything I’d like to get.

Back to the bracelet. The green Czech glass rings were in the March box and I was going to use them with some funky mustard colored 20mm donuts I got last year. Then the cheerios got in the way.

Copper and kelley green remind me of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene”. I am not a country fan, but there’s a desperation in that song that makes you believe that Dolly feels lost when compared to this woman with “flaming locks of auburn hair, eyes of emerald green”. I picture Jolene with very curly red hair, and the spiral grooved oval chain reminds me of curly locks. This is probably about as close to chain maille as you’ll see from me, sometimes I make my own chain, but that’s usually the extent of it. He-he, I guess in this case you could say “the czech’s in the maille”.

Perhaps I’m lucky that Curiosity Club didn’t kill this cat? Yeah, I’ll stop with the idioms now. I’ve tortured you enough. But let me just mention that I got to use the word “kerfuffle” in conversation today…let’s blame it on the po