The Little Rock Pendant

Shell Pendants are boring but they can be useful. They’re the piece de resistance of necklaces sold by chicks wearing recycled saris in little booths that stink of incense. They spend their mornings scraping 'made in china' stickers off the backs and you're getting ripped off even at 2 for 10$!!! Usually a moderate hit with the university crowd, many people have them around, if not from these girls, from camping trips and things like that. These things are boring and a bit ugly and if you’re as landlocked as I am, look a bit silly, duuude.

But here’s why you should reuse those shell pendants if you have them, or buy them if you don’t ( not the whole necklace, please). The shells themselves are light weight, and if you’re heavyinto gemstones and rocks like I am, you know what a beautiful necklace on the heavy side feels like 2 hours into wearing it.

Yeah.

So, I've made a necklace using a shell pendant I got off a natural wind chimes thinger-ma-bober I found on heavy heavy discount (I think like, maybe 3 dollars) at Home Sense. You see, I always had the good taste never to buy a beach wear necklace in the first place ;). I originally bought the chimes for the natural rock slices, which at 3 dollars for six (usually retail for 5-15$ each) got me giddy. I never thought I'd ever have any use for the shell pendant, after all I hated necklaces with them (I know I've already said that), but looking through my tackle box the other day I thought that the perfect round shape really lent itself to a structural backing. I'd seen a lot of jewelry pieces on gilt that had featured a mosaic of hardware and stones but I didn't see how I,myself, might tackle that sort of look ( I'm not the biggest hardware girl).

So here's the result, very different from that I usually do.



Basically, I took suede leather cord and wrapped it through the pendant, attaching a rock slice which had two holes on either end through it. I proceeded to wrap those leather strands into a secure triangle around these too. (VERY TARZAN JUNGLE, insert romance fantasy novel with precious power giving stones whatever, dragons?). You can get a feel of this from the back of the pendant:

I then attached jump rings and other hardware. I'm going to assume you know how/can figure this out and own a pair of pliers. Google is your friend too.

I proceeded to attach a partridge feather I had trimmed and made a jump link out of wire, then crimped it all closed . I've stolen this image from a google search, but yes basically, you put the crimp bead over the wire and the shaft, bring the wire through again so you've got a loop; if you haven't got super sweaty palms and you're good at holding tiny things, you might want to cut the wire ahead of time and just crimp ( I do it, despite my accursed hands) it, or you can crimp and then cut but you risk a sharp or unattractive edge depending on how close you manage to make the cut and the type of wire you're using.Please note in the image, she is working with more than one feather, a VERY large crimp bead and her wire is a really heavy gauge (thick) because she is making earrings.



and other two stones ( Grey Moss Jasper and aquamarine--I think?). I got lazy with the jasper tear drop and actually just bent an earring hook ( fancy shepherd's...a cheeeap finding) and bent the tip up into the bead.

So yes, that's it. I'm happy with the end product, and I'll probably gift it.

Bisous,
Alicia