Remember
House of Gems? They are a long established California based jewelry supply company which caters for both hobbyists and artisans alike with volume discounts! Well, they are back with another great giveaway.
They sent me some chains and lovely creamy cultured freshwater pearls for review so I got to see some of their products up close.
The silver ones I received were silver plated except for the darker stainless steel chain, . The gold looking ones were actually brass chains. I really like the fact these brass chains were solid metal not plated. I used them as is for the designs shown here but you could also patinate them if desired. As far as I could tell, the chain links were all closed so that makes them sturdier. I did have to use my flush cutter to cut some links to make these necklaces shown here possible.
I love the look of long necklaces for the winter months as they do brighten up sweaters and turtlenecks. Long lengths of chains are therefore perfect for making sautoir inspired necklaces! Sautoir is French for a long chain necklace.
This style of long chain necklace and long lariats with tassel ends were especially popular during the
Belle Époque era (1871-1914). Victorians and Edwardians loved them! The style continued well into the flapper years (1920's). Fans of Downton Abbey would have spotted some awesome sautoirs -
check out this wonderful post for photographs from Season 4. I love the look of long necklaces for the winter months as they brighten up plain sweaters and turtlenecks. So I created two pairs of long sautoir inspired necklaces, one in each metal color. One necklace had a pendant with the classic chain tassels and the other was left very long. All very easy to make. These can be worn in many different ways.
I used very different vertically holed focals for the pendants. The gold one looks more classic. Pearls were used in links for the longer matching necklace. The crystal one looks contemporary in style.
Flappers sometimes wore long strands of pearls doubled up. The problem was the shorter loop usually works itself up to the neck as shown in the long chain picture below left. But there is a way to prevent that from happening and make the necklace loops adjustable as shown in the picture below left. My tutorial/tip for making convertible sautoirs will be out later this week.
Giveaway
If you'd like to win $75 worth of jewelry supplies from House of Gems, please make a comment below. Make sure you leave contact info below if you do not have an online shop or blog.
Email subscribers need to scroll down the post they receive, click on Share Comment and enter your comment. Pick Name/URL. If you don't have a store or blog, leave the URL blank.
This giveaway is international.
Extra entries if you become or are a blog subscriber or follower etc. If you also do shout outs about this giveaway, those will count as additional entries too! Please say so in the comments.
It ends in a week's time at 6 pm EST Monday, February 2, 2015 . I will pick the winner randomly and announce the results as soon as possible after. So be sure to leave a contact email if you don't have an online link or make sure you come back and check! Otherwise I will redraw in a week. Good luck!
Disclosure Before You Go: ______________________________
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