Holiday Beading

For the holidays, we go to visit our family and spend a few days with them. It's a time of joy, eating a ton of food, and spending time with our loved ones.

It's also the time when my SIL and I sit down and play with beads! The day after Thanksgiving, she brought out all of her bead boxes and we set to play! I brought my own beading supplies with me, but hers are far greater than mine.

Unfortunately, we didn't get a whole lot of time to bead too much, but I did get some lovely pieces done. I had a few pendants in my beading box that needed to get strung and beaded.

I purchased this bronze cast dragon a few years ago and had unsuccessfully made anything with it.
The Asian dragon is often depicted chasing the pearl of wisdom, so I used bronze coloured pearls. The jade stones represent Asia. The red stones are horn. The red beads added enough character to make this necklace work. I had previously tried using all jade or all pearls (and various combinations), but it wasn't until I added the red beads that it all came together. I primarily used the red horn because it is very light and durable, and helps offset the weight of the bronze dragon.

Pendant: Bronze cast dragon.

Beads: jade, pearl, and horn.

I had bought the silver pendant from a museum store and it sat unworn for quite a number of years. The Ancient Egyptians often used carnelian and lapis in their necklaces as well as a form of powdered quartz beads called "faience". My SIL had some glass beads that reminded me of faience (but not quite), so I intermingled the two along with silver spacer beads that had an Egyptian-esque feel to them.

Pendant: Ancient Egyptian goddess, Sekhmet

Beads: Silver, Carnelian, Lapis, and Glass

This piece had been sitting for quite some time. I bought it while I was in Venice, Italy. The heart was a hand-blown Murano glass, but it had been strung with cheap plastic beads and the whole piece was quite ugly & gaudy, but I had fallen in love with the heart pendant. I had bought some 'matching' red glass beads from a store and set up about to re-make it to show case the lovely "heart" and remind me of our vacation.

Pendant: Murano Red Glass

Beads: Czech glass and pearls