Shopping Opportunities: Chain, chain, chain

I needed some 22 gauge sterling silver wire in a hurry, so I took the opportunity to drop by one of my favorite local bead stores, Chelsea's Beads, while the Short One was at his Mom's Morning Away class earlier this week. While I was looking around, Dawn, who is a huge bead enabler (okay, okay - my bead enabling threshold is pretty low) was showing me some of her recent beautiful creations, including a cute bracelet on stretchy cord with little stone dangles when she paused and asked, "Have you actually seen this chain yet?"

I hadn't, but I was immediately smitten when she showed it to me. There were a few different options there - peridot, amethyst (I think the third choice was amethyst) and iolite, and I ended up bringing a bit of the iolite home with me. This is 4mm faceted iolite wrapped in vermeil.


Chelsea's is well-known for having a copious amount of chain in various metals (they have a ton in different link styles - I believe a decent amount of it is available on-line as well), but I'd never seen anything like this delicate wire-wrapped stone chain before, so I thought I'd share it with you. Now, could you buy the components and wire-wrap something like this yourself? Yes, of course you could. Does it take the charm away from this chain? I don't think so. This is gorgeous, gorgeous stuff, very versatile and, of course, extremely fast and easy to use. The bracelet Dawn showed me was incredibly cute and used just a single ring from this chain (with the stones dangling from it - I think her version was tourmaline) strung simply with small circular beads. (If you want to have a closer look at the chain, click on the one of the above images.) I'm excited to use this, and I can see trying out different stone versions in the future. (By the way, if you, like me, drool after this kind of thing, I believe it is available on-line through the store's website.)

Thanks for visiting!