Niky Sayers | Linda's Bead Blog & Meanderings

Niky Sayers makes the most delightful clasps out of old coins. I’ve designed jewelry with her clasps before and was excited to throw my name in the hat to win one of her hare clasps this month.

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I am always inspired by autumn colors and textures. It’s easy to picture hares hopping through fallen leaves while scoping out safe burrows for their winter retreats, (although, do hares only live in drier regions? Hmmm, I may have to look into that… )

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And that’s how the idea for this bracelet came to be. I paired one of my ceramic leaf bracelet focals with Niky’s hare clasp and accented it with earthy, fall colors.

The bracelet went through two iterations. Version 1 is shown below. Originally I wanted the clasp near the front, hoping it would be more in the spotlight there. I was pleased with version 1 initially. I took all the bracelet photos for this blog post and went about the rest of my day, wearing my new bracelet.

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However, the more I wore it, the less I liked it. It was too bulky and it didn’t drape gracefully on my wrist. It just looked stiff and chunky.

Should I start over, including re-doing all the photos? Yup, it just wasn’t right and I knew that I would always feel uneasy about it, if I left it as version 1.

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Enter Version 2. Much better. Some of the bulk in the front was reduced by moving the clasp to the back of the bracelet. I also replaced the bulky and awkward tip drilled pearls, with a double strand of smaller “peanut” beads.

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Now there is a focus of interest in both the front and the back. The bracelet curves to the shape of the wrist, rather than standing out at stiff angles. I’ve said this before, but I think that creating jewelry is like writing an essay. First you free-write to express all your ideas. Then you go back and do the painstaking work of editing it down to the down to the crystallized essence of your vision. I hope you can see that process at work here.

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Many thanks to Niky for the opportunity to design with her awesome clasp. And thanks, also, to my friends at Art Elements for hosting this giveaway and blog hop.

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Now please visit all the participants in this blog hop, to see how they have used Niky’s clasp in their own unique designs.

Guest Designers

Art Element Team

Linda cursive

This month’s Component Of The Month was made by Art Jewelry Elements (AJE) team member Niky Sayers. Niky, who is from London, England, used 2 old farthing coins to make a very cool bead. I didn’t know how much a farthing was worth or when it had been in use, so I looked it up. A farthing was worth a quarter of an old penny and there were also half farthings and 3 quarter farthings. They were taken out of circulation in 1961.

I knew that I wanted to make a multi-strand bracelet with my farthing bead. I thought this raku bead, from Odd Designs, would add some color while also tying in with the coppery color of the coin. At that point I decided to go for blue and coppery brown in the whole bracelet, along with some smaller spots accent colors.

The blue lampwork glass bead (above, right) by Jen Cameron of Glass Addictions was perfect for my third focal bead.

Each of the three strands of smaller beads has a mix of blue and brown glass beads, with some accent colors and some small copper heshe.. Although each strand is different, they all have some blue glass seed beads with a copper sheen and some of the copper heshe. These common components help to tie the overall design together. I finished the bracelet with a handmade ceramic button by Karen Totten of Starry Road Studio.

Thank you Niky for sharing your awesome metalsmithing skills with us in the form of this uber-cool bead! In addition to the AJE team members, 3 lucky guest artists also received farthing beads. My Farthing Bracelet is available in the bracelet section of my shop.