When I planned my vacation time for the year, I talked my son and his lovely wife into going to Australia with me. They had been before their wedding to visit their best friends who are living there. We booked for a week in May, which was all the time the kids could get off. And then their friends announced- they decided to get married while we were there!
Next thing we know, there is a party of us traveling and a great deal of excitement.
I asked the bride what she was doing for wedding jewelry, and she replied she didn't know. So I offered to make it for her-and she said yes!
This is a project of incredible magnitude, and great excitement for me.
She emailed me pictures of a few things she liked, and told me the color scheme.
I emailed her photos of all the beads I have (quite overwhelming, I have a lot).
She liked the Venetian glass best.
Around Easter, I had the kids over for dinner with the express idea of picking my daughter-in-law's brain for design- after all, she is close friends with the bride. And she fell in love with a blue crystal I had hanging around. We used that as the focus, and slowly build a design from glass bugle beads, sterling beads and Venetian glass. This is the prototype.
It has silver foil beads, bugle beads, Swarovski crystals, pearls & the center crystal; Meredith designed it. We used the pale blue Venetian glass above.
We Skyped, and she liked it; the design was official.
Next, we designed bracelets for the bridesmaids.
Afterward, I did a few prototype designs for earrings.
I just can't make it not be sideways. Sorry about that.
Anyhow, my only worry was the two blues in the necklace, so I sent her a closeup.
She decided to go with the white Venetian glass instead of the blue.
You can really see the detail- the tiny square silver beads, the large foil silver beads, the Swarovsky AB bicones and the little white pearls. That crystal pendant is real bling.
So I finished the set with a really neat, modern sterling clasp.
So it ended up looking like this:
I made earrings to go with the bridesmaids' bracelets. Meredith especially loved the sterling wave clasps.
My daughter-in-law Meredith loves color, so she designed her bracelet with brighter Venetian beads, and added in some blue glass beads as well.
I also decided to make a bracelet for the bride and groom's mothers, who were also attending. I wanted them to have a keepsake and I thought having somethings with the same design might add to the sentimental value of it. I knew the bride's mom was wearing teal, so I made hers with teal Venetian glass. I guessed on the groom's mom and used blue. It was a good guess- she wore a lot of blue and wrote me a lovely thank you note when we got home.
This is not the best bridal photo- I have hundreds-but it shows the jewelry off really well, so forgive me, Amanda. I think that at 2:30 am the bride still looked like she was having a great time.
