The pendant is complete!

After bonding and trimming soft, repurposed black suede to the back, I attached the two layers with one row of brick stitch with bronze delicas. The bail loop is also made of these. I'm thrilled with the way it turned out, and I hope Marie (skyejewels.com) will be, too. I really like the way the bronze tones pick up the deep browns in the shell. The pendant measures between 2 1/4" and 2 1/2". What a fun project-I can't wait to receive more tiles and try my hand at an embroidered bracelet! Thanks for following this interesting journey-I've enjoyed the ride!

Almost there...

I decided to add a final ring of root beer seed beads for a glimmer of gold. Now, the backing has been trimmed and touched up. It's time to finish this pendant.

Almost there-or am I?

I'm liking where this is going. I think I've struck a balance between enhancing Marie-Noel's tile and totally going overboard. Is it done? I'm not sure. The next step is trimming, bonding on the leather backing and constructing the bail. I really love the asymmetry at the bottom, which is 3 taupe green fresh water pearls, and although it's difficult to see in the photo, there is a little brown edge of size 15 seed beads that surround the pearls. It might be a good idea to enhance that a bit more. That's an idea that needs to percolate. I'm pretty sure the edging will be done with deep gold metal 15 seed beads that I've had for a bunch of years. How do you think it's going so far?

Collaboration-I'm on the way, finally!

Yep-this is much better. The Lacy's is again Sharpie colored, deep green. Note to self-pick up a brown Sharpie. I used deep gray metallic AB seed beads to construct the bezel. This is much more like what I had in mind. I am seeing at this point that the beautiful tile needs to be enhanged, not not overpowered by the beading. BTW, the tile is 1 1/2" in diameter, and beading can get big in a hurry.

A New Collaboration Begins!

I was lucky enough to meet Marie-Noel Voyer-Cramp (Skyejewels.etsy.com for finished jewelry, Moreskyejewels.etsy.com for tiles) on Facebook. I love her ephemera tiles with beautiful digital art, and I suggested to her that we collaborate-her tiles, my bead embroidery, just to see what I could come up with. She mailed me a few tiles from Calgary, Alberta, CA and I was thrilled when they arrived here on the coast of NC-how beautiful they are! Here's the first attempt at a pretty pendant. Glued down onto Lacy's Stiff Stuff, I colored the background (black was my first choice) and you can see the roughed out shape with a little more color testing in the corner. I started with gray seed beads to surround the tile with peyote stitch, and as I was beading, I happened to notice that my fingers were black Sharpie stained, and I wasn't digging where I was headed. Now what?