A few weeks back I had a sudden itch to make – and remake – some jewellery. After refashioning a few pieces from old ones, I made a few new things from my little box of beads and supplies:

Early last year I bought some discounted bundles of glass beads from an art store in Canberra. They were a bit ‘too much’ all strung together, so I spaced them out with some seed beads. I’m not in love with the result, but I like it enough to wear it. At least until I think of a better idea.

I saw some elaborate necklaces featured on a blog with lots of chains draped between beads. This is much less fancy, but I like the simplicity of it and have worn it out twice already. It incorporates a glass bead I bought at the craft show last year.

This looks much nicer worn than lying on a flat surface, because the strings of beads hang slightly in front and behind each other. It’s based on a wood and gold necklace I bought cheaply at a dress shop. I had one of those moment when it occurs to you that two things you’ve been keeping separate would look great together. In this case, there’s a lot of black and white fashion about, which I like, so the combination was in my mind when I looked through my beads. The white beads came from a necklace I bought at an op shop, the black ones for another necklace that only ever worked in my head.

It took many, may hours to make it, partly because I used tiger tail on my first attempt and I couldn’t get the lengths of each strand of beads quite right, and then I kept running out of one or other kind of bead. Eventually I strung them separately on plain sewing cotton, then transferred them to beading thread when I was satisfied with the combination of beads and how everything hung together.