Fresh from the desk: Wooden flower necklace

This design is a bit of an experiment. But, really, aren't they all? I came across the large wooden flower in a clearance bin and just had to have it. It came with two matching leaves, which I'll probably make into a pair of matching earrings.

The main issue I had with this was the fact that the flower has no drilled hole like most pendants do, and I wasn't about to try and drill one myself. It's light and fairly thin and I probably could have, but I wanted the challenge of trying to make it work without drilling. I started with a daisy-chain stitch with very pale pink bugle beads with a lovely pearly finish. They're so pale I've had trouble using them before without them ending up looking white. I framed them with opaque bone-white seed beads which helps differentiate the colors a little bit, but subtly. The flower is enough of a statement that it didn't need wilder colors than that. I had some wooden beads on hand I used for the metal-free loop-ball clasp and above the flower on each side. The tassels have copper-colored Swarovski crystal pearls to add one more texture while staying within the color scheme. Noticing a trend with my texture obsession? lol.

The first idea I had for this wasn't quite like it ended up. The package had 2 flowers in it so I may try that later with blues instead and see how it turns out. The flower ended up being more of a stabilizing structural element than it looked at first glance in the package, but really, I'm okay with that. It gave me a chance to work with a different approach to a Y-shape necklace and to make another subtle statement piece. Is that a contradiction in terms? A subtle statement? Maybe not. I see a lot of people wearing large brightly-colored necklace and wonder what they're thinking...some of those things are sooooo ugly. There's nothing wrong with making a statement with some class, right? Right.