Ice Storm

This month's Art Bead Scene Challenge is entitled "Ice Storm" - pretty appropriate for this time of year. I completely blew off the ABS monthly challenge last month, so I'm determined to submit a few pieces for the current month. Here's a simple one that I put together last night. The PMC pendant is actually one I made for an autumn-themed necklace back in October. I was looking at it the other night and decided it would make a nice winter seasonal piece, too.

I had actually purchased a strand of flake quartz because it looked like ice crystals a few months ago, so I dug those out to use with the piece. I finished the piece with aquamarine, chyrsophase, faceted quartz crystal, pearls and a toggle clasp by Robert Jennick (once again, I am not aware that R.J. has a website, but he does sell his beads and findings through Knot Just Beads). I've never used flake quartz before, and I one thing I noticed was that I had a lot of broken beads on the strand. Since I believe flake quartz is made by heating the stone until stress fractures appear (which look like flakes of snow in the quartz, hence the name), I guess I'm not completely surprised by this, but I will definitely inspect my strands more closely before buying any more of this stone.

I had a terrible time photographing this piece - anything involving clear beads is tough, to my mind. I think this photo is pretty poor, but I wasn't able to come up with anything better this afternoon while the Short One was napping.

Anyway, if you have not already checked out the Art Bead Scene Monthly Challenges, I highly recommend that you do so. There's some beautiful bead-making and jewelry making going on over there. It's really a great source of inspiration.

On a final note, while I was hoping to start the sale in my Etsy store tomorrow during the Short One's nap, it appears I may be tied up with other things during that window of opportunity. I will still try to get everything marked down then, but if there aren't any sale notices in the shop by, say 2:00pm CST, it means I failed. In that case, I'll update the shop after the SO is asleep, say around 8:30pm or so. I'll post a notice on the blog, once the sale has started, explaining the terms, etc.

I'm still working on the Short One's Birthday Giveaway prize, too. I'm on the fence about making it a 16" necklace or an 8-8.5" bracelet. Anyone have any strong feelings either way on the short necklace v. bracelet options?

Hope everyone had a good Monday. Thanks for visiting!