Beading for Good

One of the lovely benefits of making jewelry is getting asked to donate to a good cause.  My friend Amy of Copper Diem has made it her mission - she even has a cool new Facebook group to talk about new ways to support worthy causes with jewelry called The Compassionate Colors Project.

The cause I am supporting with this jewelry is my church's Hispanic Ministry Gala and Festival.  Part of the event is a silent auction.  To me any event with "gala" and "festival" in the title must be bright and vibrant.  So I perused my carefully inventoried supply of focals (i.e., poured out many containers until inspiration struck) and settled on this clay focal I bought a couple years ago from Iktomi.  The orange beads in the necklace (they look red in the first picture) are from Lorelei's Beadin' Path challenge which I didn't quite get around to, as are the green rounds and the small orange flowers in the earrings.  I am 99% sure that the small orange lampwork bead I wired into the bail and the matching orange stripe beads I used on the earrings are from Kerry. 

Having no idea who will end up with my treasures, I wanted to make something flexible.  So I fashioned a double strand bracelet with similar colors.  The pictures that follow are slightly fuzzy - the sun suddenly disappeared!  My models wounds aren't as bad as they look - she jammed her finger during goalie practice :-)

If you keep the bracelet doubled and attach it to the back of the necklace it looks like this:

And finally, if you use the bracelet as a single strand the necklace can be worn this long: 

Since I was on a roll, I made these earrings for myself - I had been imagining using a gunmetal gray pleather cord with those beads in my head for AGES - and finally sat down and did it.  I am 99% sure these are SueBeads - they were a gift from my best beady BFF Jen :-)