When people start to hear
that you make jewellery you tend to get a mixture of responses,
ranging from total disinterest, through mildly patronising to the
more wonderful and surprising reactions. This is definitely one of
the latter! One of the ladies at my sisters wedding, on hearing I
make jewellery, said that she had a large jar of beads and bits of
broken jewellery that she'd been keeping for years – would I be
interested in taking them! She knew she'd never be able to do
anything with them but couldn't bring herself to throw them out.
Expecting an old jam jar
with a few broken necklaces and maybe an odd earring I jumped at the
chance. You just never know what you might find in something like
this. It's an exciting prospect, digging through looking for treasure!
When I actually saw what
she had, I was amazed and very grateful! A large kilner jar just
packed with beads, broken necklaces, tie pins, odd earrings and
sequins as well as other bits and bobs. Going through this is going
to take some time! The sequins were, in a way, the easiest to deal with
– I know I won't use them so they got passed on to someone who
will. But everything else........
 |
| Jar full of beads! |
At first look there's a
lot of glass and resin pearls in subtle shades of pink and gray.
They range in size from tiny rice pearls to much larger focals. Some
show the signs of time and wear, some don't. These are not colours I
would often use, or beads that I would normally pick so it's going to
be a fun challenge to work with them.
 |
| Bead spread |
But there were some that
instantly caught my eye as something I wanted to use! Some lovely
little seashell shaped charms, a lone deep green glass faceted round.
A really interesting collection of little blue stones in what looks
like a broken clip-on earring. Some lovely rich amber coloured resin
beads and an unusual metal cage spacer among others.
 |
| Old clip on earring |
 |
| Rich green faceted round |
 |
| Metal cage spacer |
 |
| Resin beads |
 |
| Cute seashell charms |
For now the jar is sitting
on my work bench as ideas tumble round in my head. I think it's going
to be some time before I work my way through them all!
