Fresh from the desk: Custom turtle necklace

My cousin is wonderful. She immediately ordered earrings from my Etsy shop to match the necklaces I had already sent her. She officially rocks my socks. Then, she proposed a challenge to me: she loves turtle jewelry but has had trouble finding any. I'm on it.

Honestly, the hard part was finding the turtle pendant. I didn't have all day to look and I don't get up to Rapid City very often, so my shopping choices were Michael's and Hobby Lobby, and to get it done quickly enough that Mom and I weren't late for our respective rehearsals. There was one turtle pendant at Michael's. One. And it was bright shiny orange glass. Not exactly what I had in mind for my cousin, who is a character but with class. I suspect there may have been more that would usually be in stock, but there were a fair number of empty pegs in the charms/pendants section. Instead of making that one work, we tried Hobby Lobby next. It took forever, and the first 3 that we found were very childish-looking, but we finally found this little tortoise.

I wanted to keep the design simple and small but unique. I couldn't use any overly large or bright beads with the little guy or he'd be hidden (I've decided the bead is male. Yes. Why? Who knows. Does it matter? Not really.). I decided to stick with a green/silvery palette to avoid overdoing it, but instead focused on using several different textures within the color scheme. I prefer to use earthy materials rather than metals, partly because of my goal to keep my designs hypoallergenic and partly because i like to use different textures like woods, glass, gemstone chips, shells, and pearls to keep things different and interesting. We found Heishi river shell beads in the same green as the "belly" of the tortoise and iridescent labradorite chips to complement both the silver and dark green.

In this design, I see the rocky journey the desert tortoise must make across the shimmering desert sands and rocky iridescent hills to find the green sustenance he needs, to remind us that even if the journey is difficult it is necessary but can also be beautiful. Maybe that's corny. Maybe I've been staring at it too long. Maybe I need to go to bed. :)