Kraft Korner - Faux Jade Necklace

Hey all! Winter is around the corner.. days are bound to get a bit sluggish (yeah, I like to just keep hibernating inside my rajaai :)) So I want to make the best use of the few days left before the cold overtakes my energy!

 It has been a while since I made jewellery.. I have been wanting to try out wire-wrapping for quite some time now. I did try out a couple of wire-wrapped earrings but they were quickly made and swiftly gifted away to dear friends before I had the patience to click them for memory's sake...


I tried making this wire-wrapped necklace set out of the beads I picked up at Itsy Bitsy's Lajpat Nagar store that was opened recently. They were in a tray of assorted (in shape and size) beads of the same colour. I picked up 7 such ones - each of a different shape just to challenge myself as to what I might do with them :) Well, the colour was lovely and resembled jade. The material was not as heavy as the stone and but heavy enough to give a good amount of tautness to a cotton thread. And the size was perfect for wire-wrapping!

So, here I am with my necklace.. I have used four of the beads (ellipsoid, bi-cone, irregular flat and sphere) as you can see. Have reserved the rest three for a matching bracelet which I'll make soon.. I started with first caging the beads with 28-gauge jewellery wire (along with many other goodies, this was bought with the prize coupon from Itsy Bitsy for my Polymer Clay Jewellery tutorial) using round-nosed pliers and cutter. The wrapping itself, I did by hand.  Just to give a twist, I did not cage the sphere but just wrapped it from one side and coiled the free end. I had initially wrapped the irregular flat bead also but then the whole thing looked more silvery and less jadey than I wanted it to be. So, I removed its wrapping and let it be to reserve the jade flavor better. Have used just an eye-pin to hold it in place.

Next, I connected these pieces using 4mm jump rings and connected the whole ensemble to the co-ordinating cyan-coloured thread (0.5 mm cotton beading thread) using metal spacers (just to add a little bling). I had prepared the cord ends beforehand using a lobster claw clasp, jump ring and two matching coloured plastic beads. I haven't used crimp beads since the ones I had were too small for the cord. Hence, have just knotted the ends and sealed the knots with glue. Here's the whole piece:

I am linking this to Itsy Bitsy's Anything Goes With Itsy Bitsy Challenge. (All the supplies for this piece are from Itsy Bitsy:
1. Faux Jade beads (handpicked from store)
2. 28- gauge jewellery wire
3. 0.5 mm cotton thread for beading (part of assorted set of 5 colours)
4. Metal spacers
5. Lobster claw clasp
6. Jump rings
7. Eye pin
8. Round-nosed plier and wire-cutter)