'Autumn Leaves' Wire Statement Necklace

 

With fall approaching I've been trying to transition over to some autumnal color palettes. This necklace reminds me of the color of autumn leaves, when they're changing to reds, oranges, yellows, and rust colors (hence the name).

I love these colors, and I love the copper and bronze together, but I have to make a confession: I don't actually like this necklace. It happens sometimes. And the final product here is actually version 3.0--I remade parts of it three times before I actually got it to a place that I felt was halfway respectable. But it's just not a necklace I'd likely ever wear. This was the original version:

It just felt too 'blah' to me, and not well balanced. So then I tried changing the color of the top strand:

See the yellow beads on the left side? I thought maybe it just needed a less blah color than the original amber glass beads, but the yellow just did not harmonize well with the other colors. And I still felt like it needed a bit more weight on the top to balance the focals in the bottom strand. So, I added a third strand and kept to the red tones already present in the necklace.

Much better overall, but still not a winner in my book. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right? Someone will like it. I hope. This piece is definitely going up for sale in hopes that someone will give it a loving home.

But anyway, onto the necklace details. This piece features beads of quartzite, agate, bamboo coral, freshwater pearls, glass pearls, glass beads, and crystals. The wire focals, connectors, and chain/links are all handmade using German copper wire (tutorials for the wire focal elements are here and here). I'm sure by now you know the drill so I won't bore you with any more small talk.

 

I finished off the necklace with a lovely leaf-shaped toggle clasp in antique bronze; I thought the leaf motif fit well with the autumn color palette.

I'll leave you with a couple of last pics of the finished piece:

Have you started transitioning to fall colors and accessories, or are you holding on to summer as long as you can? I'd love to know.

Sarah