The Frutti di Bosco necklace...

I made a necklace today, probably inspired by my desire for lovely Italian food. Which, by the way, took us to Carluccio's in the city centre. By coincidence they have a Frutti di Bosco crêpe in the dessert menu - although I just had a panna cotta al caffé. Yummy; everything very, very lovely...

The name of the necklace is Frutti di Bosco, or simply "berries". I just wanted to make something red, using my wedding cake beads and some of the red gemstones (jade and coral beads).

It is a light necklace, since the coral beads are small and quite light, not nearly as dense as some of the other gemstones (agate, jade and so on). I also did not use big jade beads, but smaller ones, so they would not interfere with the wedding cake Murano beads.

Here it is...


I have used:

- 3 Murano wedding cake beads with gold foil;
- 6 cherry jade beads;
- 6 Swarovski burgundy crystal pearls;
- Several Swarovski crystal bicones in shades of red as accent beads;
- 20 small dark red coral beads;
- Czech red bugles and cystal faceted beads;
- Gold-plated spacers and little balls, as well as clasp and extension chain.

Sounds like a recipe, but I like to register everything I use in my necklaces anyway. May look a bit edible too, but I would not recommend it...

Some close-ups:



On these pictures you can see the one of the cherry jade beads, which has lovely, organic texture, and the little coral ones at the right, interspaced with the small Swarovski bicones.



Just click on the above picture to see the wedding cake beads in detail, with beautiful gold foil and swirls. I also used some gold-plated bead caps and spacer beads. I think the bead caps help protecting the beads from rubbing against each other somehow. I would hate to damage those little beauties!

Detail of the Swarovski crystal pearls...

And a final close-up of the clasp and extension chain.

And another view of Frutti di Bosco...