What's on My Bench??

Today's episode is from JET member Phylly of SendingLoveGallery. Let's see what Phylly does with turquoise:

Sometimes a complete jewelry design will come to you in a flash, but other times you start with part of an idea and wait for the rest of it to gel. In my case, what’s been on my bench for a few months are these gorgeous turquoise chunky beads.  They are a mix of New Mexico and Arizona turquoise all in similar sizes in the blue green color range. I kept them in my work area and would occasionally look at them and think about how I would like to use these lovely stones.  

I didn’t see them in a necklace so I began to think about making a bracelet. There were not enough stones to make a bracelet using only the turquoise nuggets, so I would need other beads and elements mixed in. Knowing turquoise looks great with silver led me on a hunt for the perfect silver focal bead. I finally found a wonderful handmade sterling silver star bead.  With this bead as part of the design, my first thought was to use all oxidized, darkened silver findings with it, but when I laid them out they looked too dark with the turquoise and the silver bead. Even though the star bead has an oxidized light and dark design, shiny silver was going to be the way to go. So, I laid out the turquoise and some of the sterling findings and spacer beads I would need in a pleasing design on the bead board. 

The star bead has large holes so I put bicone sterling beads with small holes on either side of it for stability. Then I tested the combination by threading a larger saucer bead, a small bicone, the focal bead, another bicone and saucer bead onto my jewelry wire to see how they looked –and that combination worked to support the center bead. 

After looking at my design I decided to add a small turquoise bead to each end of the bracelet, which would make  2 groups of 3 nuggets separated by a sterling saucer bead on each side.  Then I threaded the clasp, wire protector, crimp bead, crimp cover, sterling beads and turquoise to complete one side of the bracelet.  

I checked the length of the finished half of the bracelet and it was fine, so I completed the other half the same way. This side of the bracelet ends in chain, to make it adjustable. 

Here is what the finished bracelet looks like:

 

Beautiful bracelet Phylly!. Thank you for the glimpse into your creative process. Remember if you want to learn more about Phylly, please check out her Etsy shop, SendingLoveGallery!  

Stay tuned for next week's episode of What's on My Bench??