New Summer Necklaces...

I've been busy working on restringing a simple but pretty green crystal bead necklace (which I forgot to photograph), as well as coming up with a way to enable my customer to move different pendants she already owns on and off several chains and necklaces with different diameter beads. She also mentioned she wanted the option of hanging several items off this element.

Originally I'd thought of using one of those bails that that has the little lever and hinge which would easily go on and off her necklaces, but the problem is they tend to be too wide to accommodate many of the bails on existing pendants, and they're normally only good to hold one pendant at a time.

Then I remembered I had a sterling silver heart with a little spring lever in it (dunno what else to call it). Because she'd already asked for heart beads in the necklace, I thought it could work (although, personally, in this case I think I'd forgo the crystal hearts):

My customer is tiny -- this necklace (excluding drop, but accounting for the half-inch or so across the top of the heart) is only 14 inches long. After trying it on, we decided that the two crystal hearts were sitting too high up, so I cut off the bottom two links and added them at the top. I also added an extra 7mm jump ring at each end to further adjust the length since this is chunkier than a simple chain, which is what I measured off of originally. She'll be wearing this for a week to see how it fits and decide if it requires any further tweaking.

Further to my post the other day about selling in person versus online, this is the beauty of doing a weekly market. I can make little adjustments of this type while the customer shops. Another regular customer stopped by asking about tweaking a necklace she'd just bought elsewhere -- I think I detected a hint of embarrassment....

This week Nancy went on a burrowing mission through my bins of beads, dug out some forgotten goodies and between us we came up with these necklaces:

I love this blue and I don't care that it's dyed. Aquaterra Jasper with seed beads and a copper-wrapped bone dragonfly pendant:

This is such a happy necklace combo; the colours are like candy: dyed MOP button chakra necklace with bone skull beads:

We're having a 20% off HELP US MOVE Sale at the One of a Kind Antique Mall. I ran into a pal there yesterday who didn't know where our booth was located, so I walked her back. Told her about the sale and when she was admiring the brass kindling box with the leather seat I mentioned that I'd found a newspaper from 1957 in the bottom under the tin liner box, she said that was the year she was born -- and bought the box!

Note that we will be in our new 10x10 booth in the first aisle just past the cash desk either June 30 or July 2nd (the Antique Mall is closed on Tuesday for the holiday).

Playing with my IdiotPhone: amazing, innit, how in the right light (low, in other words -- very low) you can make all the wrinkles, multiple chins and other indignities of age disappear with a little artful hair tucking!

Hmm... but I do need to get my glasses levelled -- or moosh my face around some more.

Yikes -- four weeks minus 2 days until The Gem Expo in Toronto! Hope to see you there.

Thanks for looking!