Reveal - SJ Designs Jewelry Honey Do List March Design Challenge!

Looking for my Bead Soup post? Go here... or keep scrolling down to see my previous two entries! :)
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Every month, Sarajo Wentling over at SJ Designs Jewelry hosts the Honey Do List challenge. What is the Honey Do List Challenge? It's where her husband, Eric, issues her a beading challenge to use up some of her bead stash, as well as help her get out of her comfort zone. Luckily for me, she lets others play along, too! 

This month's inspiration was a close-up picture of ice crystals:

Here is what Eric said about this photograph:
I finally got set up with winter gear to go out in the Minnesota tundra...then it promptly got into the 60's and all the snow melted.  Shrugging it off--and into a light jacket--I took a trip down to the river in Belle Plaine and discovered these melting ice crystals shoved up onto the bank.  Not much colorful to take shots of yet but crystals seemed appropriate for a jewelry challenge!

I had a general idea of what I wanted to make as soon as I saw this picture--which was lucky, because at the time, I was packing projects to take with me on my visit to my parents. So, I gathered up some odds and ends (and by odds and ends, I mean quartz!), and went on vacation.

I'm proud to say that I actually made all of my challenge pieces while on vacation--and it was rather fun working with only what I had taken with me. I didn't have my entire craft room at my disposal, which added another layer of challenge. 

All in all, I made two sets.

Set #1

My first set was made with quartz stick crystals. Above, you can see my portable workstation that I had set up in my parents' living room... I got to sit on the couch and create, while my Dad sat in his favorite chair and watched March Madness.

To make the necklace, I wire-wrapped the crystals. This is the end result:

I chose the darker gunmetal wire to echo the play of light and dark in the inspiration picture, and I chose to messily wrap the pendant (and end dangle) to make it feel a bit more organic.

Now, I had originally planned on making two necklaces--a simple chain with the messy-wrapped crystal as a pendant, and another one with the crystal links. As I went along, however, neither design felt complete. 

And so, I decided to combine those two ideas into this final form.

Also! The length for this necklace is totally adjustable. Below, you can see two of the different length variations... When it's worn shorter, the extra chain with the crystal dangles down the back.

While I was wrapping the links, I put aside two of the crystals for earrings. They're rather simple earrings, really, but they match the feeling of the necklace: they are messily wrapped with gunmetal wire.

  

...So, there you go! The first set I made for this challenge.

Set #2

This second set also used quartz--but not stick crystals. (Although I did have an extra strand of them! You can see them in the upper left of the above picture--again, on my portable workstation. Really, it's just a beading mat in a cookie tray, but it's pretty much the best thing ever.)

Instead, I used frosted crackle quartz. I knotted the quartz on waxed linen with silver spacers, and came up with this design:

I didn't actually have enough of the quartz nuggets to make a complete necklace, so I added some chain for extra length. As a result, this necklace is approximately 17 inches long--and sits right on my collar bone.

  
And--surprise, surprise--I made earrings to match this necklace as well. I used two of the crackled quartz nuggets, and paired them with more linen and spacers to make these:

  
...They're a bit different and quirky, and I like them. In fact, I wasn't actually sure about this set at first--it wasn't quite what I had envisioned--but the more I look at it, the more I like it. It's always fun to play around, after all... And, chances are, I wouldn't have made this set if it hadn't been for this month's inspiration picture. :)

So, there you go! That is what I created for this edition of the Honey Do List Challenge. As always, be sure to swing by SJ Designs Jewelry to see what everyone else made!

Thanks so much, Sarajo and Eric, for continuing to let me play along... and thank you, readers, for stopping by!

Have a wonderful day, everyone!