Elegant Skull Necklace

Female villains are often some of the most terrifying in film and literature. They are usually beautiful as well as cruel, which in many cases makes them all the more terrible. As the protagonist usually realizes much too late, looks can be very deceiving.

The Inspiration:

After creating a scary forest necklace inspired by Disney’s Snow White, I wanted to pay a little tribute to the evil queen. Although terrifying and cruel, she was the second fairest in the land, and surely had a wardrobe to suite. I wanted to make something that would be fitting for a queen, but with a touch of the macabre.

The Beads:

I started with some dark transparent root beer 8/0 seed beads, which have a nice color that could blend between reds, blacks and other ‘evil’ colors. To these I added opaque red 11/0 seed beads, shiny black 11/0’s, and a charming lampwork skull bead by Suzoom. I really love the ornate looking face on the skull - it looks like something a witch would use to cast a spell or tell your fortune.

The Beadwork:

At first I thought it would look nice to have a dark colored spiral rope, with the skull at the centre as a pendant. In my mind’s eye, the necklace looked great, but as I stitched, I realized that it wouldn’t quite do the skull bead justice. I went back to the drawing board, and came up with an entirely new design.

First I added some golden colored beads, which I hoped would make the beadwork look more regal. Once those were included in the palette, I decided to replace the opaque seed beads with transparent ones, so that they would blend together with the foil-lined beads, and the shiny black ones.

Instead of a spiral rope, I used the golden beads and the 8/0’s to make a V-shaped St. Petersburg chain. Once finished, I added scalloped loops in black and red, and attached the skull pendant with a seed bead fob at the end. It turned out so much better than my original idea, that I have no regrets about the spiral rope now sitting in my to-do drawer.

Copyright 2009 Inspirational Beading