Over the Rainbow

To be honest, I didn't have the Judy Garland song in mind when I created this piece (although, irresistibly, I did hum this song and "Rainbow Connection" quite a bit while I was stringing it). The necklace was a result of a couple different influences, one of which won't be evident from the photo. The original concept was trying to turn a child's crayon drawing into a piece of jewelry. In my original sketch, it had a rainbow, sun, bird, clouds and a little house for a pendant. Ultimately, I thought the house would look clunky, so I ended up changing it to a simple heart pendant. I kept all of the other elements.

The other influence was a locket that my mother wore when I was a child. It had my photo in it, and she never took it off, as far as I remember. Once the Short One was born - her only grandchild - she dug the locket out of her jewelry box, added his photo to the other side, and started wearing it again. Now, I'm often caught with my pants down when friends ask to see a photo of the Short One. Like many people these days, we only have digital cameras, we don't keep many hard copies of photos, and I, unlike the Husband, don't have an up-to-date cell phone with a camera. So, I thought it would be nice to incorporate the SO's photo into a piece of jewelry. I didn't want a locket, but I still wanted it to be discreet. As a result, I designed the pendant to be double-sided - on one side it has a simple heart that I made using a rubber block and a linoleum cutter and on the other it has a shallow bezel setting for a small photograph. And, of course, cheesily, the pendant is designed to lie close to the heart of the wearer.

Coincidentally, I had recently ordered blue bird and nest beads from Maria Grimes, and I thought they complemented the necklace nicely (and worked well in connection with the "Over the Rainbow" song, although, again, that wasn't my original intent). The nest bead is very nice in that Maria made it two-sided, with eggs on both sides, so it's "right way up" regardless of whether you are looking at the photo or the heart. I've only managed to nab beads from Maria twice (her beads go fast) and both times they ended up being perfect for my project - I think it's destiny, Maria!! Thank you! The rest of the piece is made from Czech glass.

This necklace still has a few problems - it became clear to me as I was stringing this that I did not design the toggle clasp correctly for the strands of the "rainbow" to lie nicely. That will have to be changed eventually. For the moment, though, I'm probably going to go ahead and wear it the way it is for a while. The SO hasn't seen it yet, but I feel pretty confident that he'll find it tugworthy (his stamp of approval).

I know I promised a photo of Sarah Moran's bead today, but it's been so long since I've had a full finished piece to show you that I thought I'd defer Sarah's bead until tomorrow. It's really a gorgeous bead - I'll show it to you soon!

Thanks for stopping by!