Mixed Media Bib Pendants: Make a Beaded Necklace Now and WOW!

Faaabulous! I’m in love with a shape! It’s a righteous squiggle. And it has great potential. And I’ll just say this out loud: This shape is not my idea. I saw it on a lovely necklace that was submitted for a long-ago bead challenge that had an Alice in Wonderland theme. The squiggle was made from wire and used as an armature to hold sculptural embellishment on the front. I remember seeing it for the first time and thinking OH MAN! Why didn’t I think of that??? Thank God that Alison Parra did. Because I love it. And I’m going to share it with you.

Mixed Media Mayhem!

In this day and age of mixing together fibers, chain, hardware, metals, glass and anything else you can get your hands on, this little squiggle is a brilliant structure. It can be manipulated into any size you wish to accommodate what you wish to embellish it with. My squiggles came out like flowing, organic little entities. I was instantly in love! Here’s how my explorative journey into squiggle-land went:

Wire with attitude

Selecting a wire gauge that could support its shape well, such as a 18g, 16g or 14g, I grabbed my round nosed pliers and just started curling wire. I learned quickly that you need a strong wire for this. So I abandoned the sterling and tried a few others, such as plated wire with copper core, then electrical wire, utility wire, and finally a multi-purposed galvanized wire that I originally bought for the Flight of Fancy butterfly entry for the Ugly Bug Ball Bead Challenge. So glad I saved the rest of the wire spool for a future adventure! Its not gorgeous wire, but its going t serve its purpose well. Of course, you can use finer wire if you wish. I just am going for the big look. If you want petite, then stick to smaller gauge wire.

Squiggles ahoy!

In the beginning I tried to balance it all (I’m a Libra...what can I say??) and I quickly realized that it was much more interesting to just let it flow in an uncontrolled, wild-abandon sort of way. This squiggle is like an armature or finding that you’ll build your design from. The fun thing about this is that after literally about approximately 24 seconds of squiggling, you’re ready to build! Go this way and that way, that way and this way!

Loop-de-loop!

After a few traditional squiggle shapes I decided to change it up and make some that had more of a spiral and loop form. Fun! This is really free-ing, since I was born into the wire world back in the days of tight little loops with firm, close-together coils. To go all spastic with looping wire is really off-the-charts fun.

A pile of sqiggles!

Once I grew weary of squiggle making (is that even possible?), I decided to get out my bead box and rummage for goodies. Old keys, tiny glass bottles, metal filigree, lace, shells, fibers, rocks, feathers, safety pins, silk flowers, old costume jewelry, chain, trinkets, toys and random stuff. I selected a squiggle, and dove in!

Joyful embellishment

There’s more than one way to cook an egg. Same goes with attaching your embellishments onto your squiggle frame. If you’re using fabric in any way, you can sew it on with Fireline. If you’re attaching beads or components, you can use a think gauge wire. Or heck, use a humongous gauge wire if the bead or component will fit on there. You can use thread, fibers, screen, waxed linen or any other thing to get stuff on there if you wish to incorporate it into your design. Just attach say, a piece of wire onto an area of squiggle where you wish to put something, and then attach the other end somewhere else to secure your bead or component. Think of yourself building a collage of sorts, perhaps in a theme.  My theme is going to be the ocean and its called Message in a Bottle.

Gathering up my stuff

A tiny little glass bottle with a little beach sand in it… and a scrolled-up hand written message. Because the paper looked too new, I decided to squish it up a bit and make creases and wrinkles in it, and then use a pencil to smudge the edges so they’d be darker. That wasn’t dark enough, so I rubbed it around in my brownish eye shadow. Hey, a beader’s got to do… you know. That worked pretty good. So I gunked up the cork on the bottle, too, since that looked too perfectly clean. Then I used a black marker to write the message. What does it say? Its says, “Send beads!”   :-)  A bunch of shells, small piece of driftwood, a sand dollar and any other stuff I could find that reminded me of the ocean in a small pile close by, and I was ready to start assembling.

Building a masterpiece!

First I attached the bottle simply by tying it on the bottom center of the squiggle with a piece of twine. Twine fit the theme and made it easy to attach it. Then I used wire to attach just about everything else. The beach pebble had to be secured with a touch of E-6000 since I didn’t want to drill it. I like the simplicity of it by itself. A seashell from Balboa Island, CA,  beach pebble from Maine, a Karen Hill Tribe silver fish, two pieces of sea glass that I drilled, Lucite shells, a silver clam shell and 4 mother of pearl daggers and I was in business. To tie it all together, I decided to tie on a piece of Fireline and run  some Jet 2XAB Swarovski bicones with a ribbon of seed beads to have some flow. When it was all assembled I had to touch a few places with either a bit of E-6000 or clear nail polish to make sure things were secure. And there! Its done!

Chain gang

Choosing a chunky chain for the necklace was simple and easy. Since the focal piece is so busy I didn't feel that a complicated strap was necessary. A few 4 mm bicone Swarovski’s going up the bottom of the chain hopefully looks like a little burst of sea spray. A hearty clasp strong enough to hold it all together and it was complete. While I was attaching the clasp I was already thinking of the next one: a bouquet of vintage Lucite flowers! Must…..begin…...NOW!

“Running with an idea is like running downhill. Fast paced, a little unsure, a little out of control, and the most freeing feeling there is! For control freaks is a scary ride. For the brave designer it’s the most intense bead joy.”  ~Corrine Haliday, on her wild-abandon bead technique