Wren-tastic - Art Jewelry Elements COM Reveal!

Hello everyone and welcome to the reveal of the Art Jewelry Elements Component of the Month reveal!

Now, I really love Wrens!  I'm a big fan of out British bird-life in general, but Wrens are especially dear to me as they are my Mum's favourite birds as well.   They are one of our smallest birds and can be quite secretive, so it's always a joy when I catch a glimpse of that iconic cocked tail.

Photo from aminalphotos.me.

It's no wonder then that I jumped at the chance to grab one of Niky Sanders wonderful Farthing beads or clasps.  They encapsulate not only my love of birds, but my love of historical things too.  I was pretty darn happy when I got a message from Niky saying I had won I can tell you!  Now, I completely forgot to take a picture of the bead I received on its own so here is one I have borrowed from the AJE blog.

I think I may have to put in an order for more of these!

I didn't want to do anything too fancy with the wonderful little bead as I didn't want to overwhelm it with too busy a design, so kept my initial ideas simple.  It was drilled side to side which was a bit of a challenge for me.  I tried it in a couple of bracelet ideas, but I really wanted it to be a pendant and I wanted the wren the right way up.  I finally solved this little puzzle by creating a coiled wire frame, complete with loops from which to hang my much beloved dangles.

Mind you I think I got a bit carried away with the dangles, and therefore may have missed my original objective of not overwhelming the focal bead!

I do love my Czech Glass flower and leaf beads!  I use some in pretty much every design I do - can't seem to get away from them!  Most of these come from Smitten Beads - I absolutely adore that shop, it has such a wonderful variety beads and accessories and that is fairly rare this side of the pond.  My shopping basket is slowly filling up whilst I wait for another Etsy sale to fund my ginormous bead habit!

This one won't be going on sale unfortunately - my Mum has already claimed it!  It was a trade though - in return I got my hands on some amazing vintage beads of hers that I've been coveting for years. 

These perfectly smooth hexagonal pillars are made of some kind of jasper with brass end-caps and loops - and those round beads are so wonderfully shaped too!  I can't wait to get to work on them!  In the background is a very long strand of vintage glass square beads in wonderful earthy tones.  All of these beads are older than me!  Of course my mum will get some of them back, reconfigured into something new to add to her collection.

Anyway, enough digression!

Many thanks for joining me here in my little corner of the internet, and many many thanks to the wonderful ladies at Art Jewelry Elements, especially Niky, for the chance to be involved in one of my favourite monthly hops.  Please hop on over so you can see what everyone else has magicked up to!

Guest bloggersRebecca AndersonNan SmithAJE TeamSue KennedyKristen StevensJenny Davies-ReazorLindsay StarrCaroline DewisonLesley WattLinda LandigRebekah PayneNiky Sayers