Golden Bails!

I bought some Swarovski Crystal Elements yesterday – I was searching for some more colours of the gorgeous Step Cut rectangles (like the Swarovski Jet Nut 4582 ones) and whilst digging around for anything else I might need (to help bring down the cost of carriage from the US), I saw some metal bails to use with crystal pendants. I’d never really bothered with them before, but they were very pretty and elaborate. I almost clicked ‘Buy’, but thought better of it, because I couldn’t see a reason why I wouldn’t be able to achieve something close to their shapes, in beadwork. So I gave it a go last night using a Swarovski crystal Cosmic oval (4137) 22 – 16mm, Tabac, and inevitably some size 15⁰ Czech Charlottes in 24K gold, plus some green iris ones. I was absolutely delighted with the result and finished it off with a Swarovski 4mm bi-cone in Black Diamond 2AB. I bought the Black Diamond bi-cones in Stitchncraft last year and have been dying to use them (OK it was just one, but it’s a start).

Although it took about 2 hours, there were a few little false starts and re-dos, so overall it’s a one hour project to produce what could be a precious gift for someone, or keep it for yourself (evil grin).