A New Dress for an Heirloom Piece

Sometimes we find the most wonderful things when we clean house! Spring cleaning brought this little heirloom to the surface and its owner decided that having forgotten it for years she needed a new way to show it off.



Cameos whether they be peachy to buff or blue grey pair beautifully with moonstone. Moonstone glows of the divine feminine and its color pallet is the perfect match.


This piece is knotted with innocent little pearls between duos and triplets of moonstone drops (briolettes to those versed in bead speak). I added chain links between two small knotted sections over the shoulders and concluded with delicately wrapped drops and pearls on chain suspending from the discrete clasp and drawing attention down the back.


Some day soon I will photograph my own family heirloom cameo piece and share that story with you.

Summertime is Turquoise, Coral & Comfy Cotton!

The coral set I made last Autumn was such a hit, that the recipient commissioned me to make a Summer set wit the remaining pieces. She wanted something suitable for wearing with jeans or simple Summer dresses. This was a fun set to make. I know she will have fun wearing it!


Either this set photographs better or I'm just getting better with my camera set up. It was fun photographing with my favorite pair of jeans. Citizens of Humanity are not cheap (unless you find them second hand as I do) but they're so comfy chic they're irresistible.






Speaking of irresistible, I just had to show this silly little picture too.

Adventures with Pants

I decided to call today's photo session, "Adventures with Pants." For those of you who have known me a while the title of this blog will have double meaning. For those of you who may not even know me at all, friends have been known to call me Francie Pants & at times even, "The Pants."

I have been working on a couple of commissioned pieces in the past few weeks. One is a new design centered around an heirloom piece that may be dated back to the 1800s and the other the grand finale to my earlier Coral Saga.

I promise to post more detailed pictures of these pieces but for now, I hope you enjoy The Pants!

O Fabulous

Recently made trendy by Oprah and Tiffany's designer, Elsa Peretti the "O" shape also represents infinity. 

In वेदिक (Vedic-ancient Indian) terms the O in Om represents boundlessness (transcendence) within boundaries. 

It also just happens to give a dual functionality to the second piece of this set. 

Two fabulous female icons, a mantra that has taken on global significance and a shape shifter; anyone wonder why I call it the, "O Fabulous?"   

Coral Fringe

This photo is a bit dramatic but it does the trick. 

The Coral Fringe illustrates one of my favorite design principles, put your money up front! All the expensive high quality beads are in the front four inches of the necklace. 

Louise and I sat down together and picked the very best pieces to be showcased in the fringe. I set them apart with bittersweet Fresh Water Pearls. (If you don't already know; I love brown and am an avid catalog reader; intense colors and delicious descriptives!) With the best pieces right up front we kept the overall piece light-weight using a nice-n-sturdy gold-filled chain to complete the desired length. 

The Coral Photo Challenge

The photographing of this set posed a much larger challenge than the design concept or the making.

The quality of the photo you see here leaves much to be desired. I show it only so that you can see the "Challenge" as well as the three-in-one necklace all put together. 

The "Coral Fringe" sits at nape of the neck and just above the "Toggled Coral Tassel" which can be worn without the tassel as the oh so trendy "O Fabulous" necklace. 

Of course Miss sophistication, Louise, grasped the versatility of the set right away and can't wait to have them back to wear.  Wasn't that the point of this exercise? Ah, yes. 

Coral Gift

These lavish coral beads were given to my friend Louise by her dear friends; Francois & Christopher. They were a part of a vintage necklace that had been passed down to Francois. They came with an interesting clasp & a challenge for a new more modern form to suite Louise. As you can see above there were plenty of pieces to work with. 

I immediately took pen (or pencil as it were) to paper and came up with a design. I decided to incorporate the coral and the unique gold clasp into a few works of wearable art. "Layers of Luxury," to borrow a term from my past life as Class Director at The Bead Shop in Palo Alto. Yes, the one and only (when it opened there was no other to speak of).

I decided to use large chunks of golden Citrine and bittersweet Fresh Water Pearls to bring out the gold clasp and the deep lines in the coral. 

Louise loved the design concept and the materials I chose. Now the making is ready to begin. Stay tuned for the collection. 

To be continued....