Tag: vintage freshwater pearls

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Necklace with many kinds of vintage fresh water pearls

Multi strand necklace with vintage pearls, seed beads, and metal components lying on a cream-colored fuzzy mat with a blurred light shadows of leaves over it.

I’ve started working on this necklace in the middle of many art shows happening all at once or back to back at the end of 2019. For a while, all attempts to make much progress were very futile.

Then just as the beginning of 2020 started to look a little more promising, COVID-19 demanded major adjustments to both creative and non-creative aspects of what I do, and all I could manage was projects with deadlines attached to them.

It is wonderful when people have interest in your work, yes, and it means even more to me when their lives are affected by the pandemic. It’s just that jewelry you started because an idea looked cool in your head fails to materialize for weeks and months, and then it’s a challenge to recall what you wanted to create. Luckily, I learned to take notes, and this time notes let me work in tiny spurs here and there without losing sight of the final look.

Like it happened before so many times, the original pearls came from the Blackbird Granary in Mt. Angel, Oregon.

Photo of a beginning stage of the designing a multi strand necklace with vintage fresh water pearls of different shapes and colors ~ work in progress ~ Motley Mix Jewelry
Beginning stage of the design
Starting with the side sections
Realizing that the central part could have more strands
Multi strand necklace with vintage pearls, seed beads, and metal components lying on a cream-colored fuzzy mat with a blurred light shadows of leaves over it.
Finally done. Not even a year in the making!
Posted on by — Leave a comment

Jewelry repair that became a custom design

Photo of an unfinished custom necklace with vintage pearls and natural amazonite beads, work in progress
Work in progress – custom necklace with vintage freshwater pearls and natural amazonite beads

Either a few pearls got lost when the original necklace broke, or the neck measurement was not right, but now this jewelry repair has turned into a custom design. Once the problem of too few beads became apparent, it only took a few messages with photos of various bead combinations to finalize a new design. It still highlights these gorgeous white pearls but also has pale mat amazonite and pseudo-vintage metal niceties. Thank goodness for agreeable customers. Now, would not it be nice if amazonite beads were easier to pair by color!

My first design idea was quite different though. I went for a classical combination of pearls and rondelle beads with Swarovski crystals, but it turned out I had none and bead places close to me had none either. Now I think it’s for the better. A less predictable look is more interesting.

Updated June 7th, 2019

Photo of the finished custom necklace with vintage pearls and natural amazonite beads
Finished custom necklace with vintage freshwater pearls and natural mat amazonite beads

Aaand the customer loved the result when we met. Phew! Why is it always nerve-wracking to show your creation to the person who is paying for it, no matter how many times you did it before and with good outcome?