Be still my heart

When I saw this group of beads from Gaea I knew exactly what I wanted to make. I had been stalking Gaea's Facebook page for a few weeks trying to pounce on a winged heart and a good looking set of beads before someone reserved them.  Finally success!  You can also buy Gaea's beads at her website and at Lima Beads.

Even though I knew what I wanted to make, it took me awhile to get around to putting the piece together because they arrived just before the start of school and all the difficulties of the fall term.

The wirework is dark annealed steel which matched the loops on the pendant.  The spacer beads are copper, the enameled bird is from Gardanne Beads, the little etched copper charm I made myself, and the tuquoise seed beads are vintage from my stash.

The necklace it about 36" long and the seed bead length hangs around my neck and ends just above my collarbones.  The wirework has a nice drape because of the Goldilocks weight of Gaea's beads (not too heavy, not too light).  The smallest beads are about 6mm and the largest around 12mm.  I sand my steel wire, then rub it with steel wool before forming links. For this necklace, I lightly hammered each loop and jumpring.

This was my first attempt to etch copper.  I followed at tutorial similar to this one from Copperheart.  I bought my ferric chloride from the hardware store...it is used in pool cleaning.  For resist I used StazOn permanent ink and a stamp with tiny detail.  I have more to learn about etching, but I was happy just to get any result.  I need to practice a little more.

a little over exposed