La Vie en Rose Necklace

This sweet lil piece of neck fancy has been making my eyes happy every time I see it.  The color combination, the delicate chain, and that pretty little pink rose are all just so...precious.  To look at it, you'd like that maybe I bought it for a chunk of cash-money.  'Cept I totally did not (well, the component parts, which were not much).  This pretty is handmade, sucka!

The rose bead is from the local big box retail craft store giant, and I think it's resin or something.   The turquoise beads were in my stash and I can't remember what they are but I know they're semi-precious stones and they're faceted and adorable.  Then there's a thin gauge silver chain, some silver-plated wire, and silver-plated jump rings and lobster clasp.

The turquoise beads are secured individually on the wire, and then a loop is wrapped on each side.  You end up with a bead with two little closed hoops on the ends.  These are connected to each other using a jump ring, repeated until it's the length you want.  I went with ten beads for each side of the necklace.

The rose bead has a hole running length-wise, so I used one of those wires with the stopper and one end.  You could also use a length of wire and melt your own stopper using a torch.  The rose is front-heavy and the hole was slightly bigger than my stopper, so I used two cranberry-colored beads on either end to secure it.  Wrap a loop on the top, and attach it to the two lengths of turquoise beads with another jump ring.

You could certainly keep going with the beads and jump rings until it's the length you want, and then attach the lobster clasp and call it a day.  But I wanted a little variety, and I didn't want to use up all my beads on this one necklace, especially knowing that some would be hidden on the back of my neck (and likely getting caught in my hair).  So I attached a bit of thin gauge silver chain, which ends up starting just above the collar bones.  The chain is cut to the length you want (I went on the long side because that's kinda been my fancy lately), attached to the beaded sections using a jump ring, then attached to the lobster clasp with yet another jump ring.

Bingo-bango, a lovely and very feminine neck fancy.  I love how the cranberry beads just kinda peek out from behind the rose like they're shy.