Shells, Wire and Sari Ribbon With a Little Bit of Crystals, Jasper, Quartz, Agate, and glass...

My husband and I just got back from a big adventure...a trip to Doha, Qatar...to visit his sister and her son. We had a great time!

While we were there, I was hoping to be able to do some beach combing. I got lucky, and we were able to do that twice. The beaches were mostly covered in just sand. Hardly any shells or other findings were around, but we did find some good stuff.

If you are interested in seeing what we found, check out my Youtube video. I show my finds at the end of the video. The beginning, I show my process of getting a shell ready to wire wrap into a necklace.

Since I've been back, I have been playing around with seashells, wire and sari ribbon. Here are some cocoon bead links I made...

Then I wire wrapped some shells and added jasper, crystals, glass beads, quartz, and agate to make some pretty cool Bohemian pieces. At least I think they are pretty cool. What do you think?

The last thing I decided to make was a big pair of earrings. These two clamshells were hooked together, so they made a perfect pair of earrings I wire wrapped them with copper wire and added Picasa Jasper.

So...let me know what you think. Would you wear any of these? One of these pieces has already been asked about. She plans to wear it on her next cruise in a couple of months. 

Forest Bead Soup

Some of the last few posts have been about the bead swap I was involved with. This is the last of the posts about Lori Anderson's October 2018 Bead Swap with Donna M Hoblit of VeraDonna Treasures. 

I've done several of these swaps, and this time I did it with a bit of a twist. It is something that I've been wanting to do. 

When I picked out beads for my partner, I kept the same things, because I wanted to create and see how different our pieces are. It is so interesting to see how you can give a group of people the same exact thing to make something, and wind up with as many different things as individuals.

So, let me first introduce what I sent Donna...

Tiger Eye Chips

I love to beach comb and make jewelry out my finds. I decided to send her one of the shell pieces I found on Cocoa Beach. I wire wrapped it using copper wire.

Green Sea Glass Beads

Green Crystals

Champagne Square Crystal Beads

Some interesting glass beads

Some more interesting glass beads

A couple of star crystals.

An owl bead

Gold tone bead caps

Gold tone feather charms

...and this piece. Sorry, not sure what it is called, but it is usually used in necklaces. 

Here is the color palette I used. I love these colors; reminds me of the place where my husband's family is from in Tennessee. 

Okay...so what did I do with all this?

The first thing I did was make this owl ornament.

Since the shell was made by Mother Nature, I could not duplicate it exactly. I chose a similar shell from my stash and wire wrapped it with copper wire. I then added it to this necklace I made using the beads in stations. 

I love to make necklaces this way...putting the beads in stations, because I think is shows off the beads better. 

Hope you like what I did with these beads. I love the natural, organic look, and these definitely fit into that look.

One last thing I did send Donna was....

one of my crochet waterproof, adjustable, surfer style bracelets, in autism awareness colors. Since I have two nephews who live with autism, I always like to share the awareness.