The Sea Dragon

I bought two strands of these gorgeous teal-dyed quartz rounds at a local beadshop when they were on sale--I had no idea what I was going to do with them but they were irresistible. (I don't know why I have this lust for teal, but I have an aversion to actual blue. I mean, are they really that different?) I had multiple scenarios for using these beads, none of which resembled the pictures below. First I was going to get teal ribbon and knot it and dangle them in between. But can you find teal ribbon to match? No. I even inquired about a custom order but was so frustrated by the seller's garbled non-response I said screw it. Tried some sea green silk cord--gah, NOT. Tried teal blue satin cord--again, GAH! OK, black then. Maybe Greek leather. No, too stiff. Black silk then. Huh, the dangling thing isn't going to work. (Where have I heard THAT before.) Which also would probably conceptually disqualify black satin cord. Finally decided to just wire wrap the damn thing. And I nearly fell out of my chair when some of my new boro beads actually coordinate nicely with the quartz. Well, I guess good things DO happen to bad people.



Et voila! Some handmade nickel bead caps pounded flat to fit the boro beads, a little amazonite roundel to finish off one side, and some antique silver-plated rolo chain from Ornamentea.

The two larger boro beads are from LAJewelry on Etsy, and the smaller is from BeingBeads on Etsy (my local supplier). Unbelievable how close they match! The holes on the boro beads are pretty big and I had to drop a few 8/0 seed beads in there to pick up the slack with my 20 gauge wire. Seemed to work fine.



The pewter dragon pendant is from Happy Mango Beads. They have an awesome selection of ethnic-inspired pewter, free shipping, and they ship fast. They also recently started carrying a selection of gorgeous pewter beads. I'm sure you'll be seeing them on here pretty soon.

In other news, I got my Fusion Beads order with my vast assortment of blue and purple seed beads, so I am theoretically prepared to start my project with Pat's blue beads (see below). I should have that wrapped up in about a month. If I don't get sidetracked. Or if I don't decide I don't like it. If we win the lottery it'll be longer because I'll be in the desert playing golf. The watered part.