Artifact Necklace

In order to get this year’s destash beading challenge started off right, I wanted to begin with some beads that I’ve been promising to use for a long time. I purchased this strand of transparent red rice beads back in 2010 when I was gathering up supplies for my Cornucopia lariat. Along with some of the ‘vegetable’ beads and a hank of yellow charlottes, I couldn’t resist the luscious red strand of beads. I liked them so much, in fact, that I’ve been putting off using them ever since.

Instead of waiting for the ‘right’ project to come along, I had to try and make these beads work for me, so that I could finally put them to good use. An Egyptian collar seemed like an appropriate way to show off their color and shape, so I paired them with my favorite faux-gold seed beads and got to work.

I started with a plain chevron collar, then tried adding additional rows of chevron chain to the front, with the rice beads in the middle sections. Instead of sticking to a strict structure, I let the beads and thread do their own thing, and I was very happy with the results. The necklace has this elegant disheveledness to it - like a necklace that has survived hundreds of years in a tomb.

It was such a relief to finally snip the string on these rice beads and turn them into something beautiful, and I’m looking forward to many more destash projects - hopefully some will be just as successful. You can join in the challenge too, by sending me some before and after pictures of your destash projects, or post them to your blog and drop by with a link. Good luck!

Copyright 2012 Inspirational Beading
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