old materials and new inspiration.

I've been ill for a week; unfortunately, we moved into our new place this week, so I'm sure that all that work hasn't sped my recovery. Still, I'm finally starting to get a little better and there is less fluid in my lungs. But that means I haven't been doing much. On Saturday afternoon, while Cass and his parents threw together one last trip with the panel van (moving furniture between our old and new houses), I lay on the couch and worked on reducing the backlog of inspiration images I've torn from magazines, cutting out what I liked and sticking it into a cheap photo album that I keep for holding pictures of things that I like - mostly fashion ideas I want to copy, but also some gardens.

I don't know where this picture below came from, but as I cut it out, I knew I wanted to make this:

It's clearly that spiral rope cord (silk or polyester?) with some tangled chains, pieces of heavier-gauge-wire wrapped around portions of the necklace, and pearls on eyepins. Real pearls? One would hope, but at that size and for only $55, I imagine not - there's not a large enough margin for retail markup at that rate.

I couldn't find the spiral rope cord at my now-local beadshop, but they did have hand-dyed silk cords. I bought two, one in peach and one in a soft mauve-tan. I really wanted to imitate the chartreuse here, but they didn't have that colour at all. I bought a clamp clasp as well. I clamped the cords into the clasp ends with long pieces of copper chain that I have leftover from a project I made at 14 and then dismantled at 16 (I think it might have been a belly chain? Ah, the '90s!). For the wrapping, I used heavy-gauge copper wire that once wrapped a beaded mirror that Cassidy received for his birthday some 7 or 8 years ago. Peggy brought the silver pearls back from Mexico a couple of years ago, and they're hung on silver headpins leftover from another project of my own a few months back.

So, for about $15 of new materials and a handful of old bits and bobs, I have a new necklace! (with real pearls this time.) What do you think?