A project for my boss

Normally, on Tuesdays (my usual start day each week) I get a phone call from my boss, Esther, to update me on what she wants me to do at the store. To my surprise, she called me about a project instead!

Now to know Esther means knowing that she rarely makes her own jewelry; which is surprising to most people considering she owns two bead stores! Her husband, Dan, makes a considerable amount of jewelry for her. If she needs a quick pair of earrings, she'll pick out some beads and findings and put them in front of one of The Bead Shoppe girls and have them assemble them for her. For special projects, however, she sends them my way!

This project in particular was a necklace she saw in a fashion magazine. It was a multi-strand chain necklace with pearls, crystals, and other adornments. My task was to decipher how this was all pieced together just by a 2" x 3" picture of the necklace on a model! Oh yeah, and Esther wanted me to incorporate her three Tahitian pearls that she had Dan drill for said project! Normally, that wouldn't be that hard for me, but this necklace was intense! I had to figure out which piece went where, and how to make each strand it's particular length.

Here's how it came out:

Front View

Back View

Side View

Whew! It was and undertaking that took me a few days at the shop in between helping customers, and other projects around the store.

I found out later that Esther wanted it for her trip to Paris. Just a little something to walk around town with her girlfriends! She also wore it to the bead show that was just at Cal Expo. Apparently, I'm going to have to teach a class to make it come fall because so many people liked it! I'll keep you posted just in case any are interested!

A special thanks to Miss Hana for modeling for me! ;)