I hope your New Year’s is starting out well! We had a lovely time last night (stayed home with friends instead of fighting drunken traffic) – and I’m tucked in away from the cold.

Am feeling a bit of my Irish today – I think this pretty emerald green pendant just put me in that sort of mood. Plus I’m part Irish. Well, maybe 10% – how do we figure accurate ancestry? My father’s grandfather was from the old country. He may have been encouraged to leave rapidly or something, we had a bunch of unsavory characters scattered in there 😉

But the pendant? is just a beauty!

I’m keeping one for myself, on a simple golden chain, a little longer than usual (about 26″). Talk about a gorgeous St. Paddy’s necklace! oh, I don’t know if it’s appropriate. I do know it’s flattering and looks great!

I played with some more combinations of my “work bench bead soup” – where I grab items off my work bench and combine them, just to see how the colors look together. I thought these looked pretty good!

These aren’t always colors that are used together – peach, aqua and green, or daffodil (jonquil) yellow and deep purple amethyst. But the colors work, don’t you think?

And sometimes color is what it’s all about 😉

Because black is always in style. It always looks fresh and new. It always works.

These are not large – just under 1″ high. So they don’t feel heavy – either physically or visually. They’re clean-lined and modern (though the black navettes are from the 1960s). And you can choose the color of the tiny rhinestone – crystal as shown for a cool contrast, or any of a dozen pretty colors.

Available in my Etsy jewelry supplies store, of course 🙂

What can I say, I’ve been in the mood for sets lately – easy, fresh, and sparkling. And my customers seem to be agreeing with me – I think we’re all short on time! So this delicate yellow glass (rhinestone) jewel set is pretty popular.

The jonquil pendant here is about 3/4″ x 1/2″ and nicely faceted, in a classic pear or teardrop shape. And the matching earring jewels are little rivoli rounds (“rivoli” means the faceting comes to a gentle point on the top, rather than a “table cut”). They’re small, a bit over 1/4″ in diameter, and I show them here in one-ring settings… all you need to do is add earwires. But they can also be placed in two-ring settings, so you can add pretty pearls or dangles. Or use them as connectors for bracelets, or necklaces.

Either way – pretty. Easy. Affordable. This is all of the good 🙂