All Attitude

 This is one of my fall projects.  Every November my husband's employer hosts a company dinner.  It's a time to get away and dress up a little. 

I have a wonderful blazer that I got as a birthday gift last year and it really needed jewelry.  It is NOT a demure blazer and needed something that was going to stand out. 

Then there was the fact that I was creating this piece in October.  October can be a difficult month for me because that is when fall really takes hold and usually gifts us with days of greyness.  I don't do grey well and I was also coming to grips with the financial strain of losing ten hours of work a week.  So my attitude was somewhat in need of adjustment...

I wanted something in black and I wanted it to be something that I could wear with a variety of different outfits.  I had found the butterfly at Hobby Lobby some weeks before and was wanting to use it.  I made the beads out of metallic black glass and just to mix it up a bit I included one plain black encased bead with a rainbow frit.  Since I tend to be very symmetrical, I was also pushing my boundaries a bit and experimenting with asymmetry.  Then I wanted a bit of sparkle, so I included crystal drops and spheres.  I was going more for edgy than sweet, so my chain is rather large and is gunmetal colored.

When I got this finished, I discovered that it is somewhat longer than I like and the butterfly likes to flip itself around, but on the whole I'm quite happy with how it turned out.  I may still eventually shorten this just a bit.

And then there are the earrings!  They are butterflies with rhinestone chain dangles that are pretty close to five inches long.  Completely impractical, but lots of fun for evening wear.

This whole design is based on a similar necklace in (I think) The Impatient Beader  by Margot Potter.  I may have the name wrong...I just know for sure who the author is.