Shown below: necklace by Jean Yates using beads and components from Artbeads! please hit on the photo of the necklace to enlarge it--much better in detail! Thanks!

The exceptional online store, Artbeads.com , has offered me, once a month, the opportunity to review all sorts of interesting new things, or to design jewelry using their findings and beads, or to demonstrate and explain my designs and ideas, using their products for you to check out here in my blog. How cool!

I got my first collection of items from Artbeads this week. Everything arrived in the blink of an eye, and beautifully packaged as always! I think this is going to be fun! I love to review things as many of you may know. I have lots of books and items I review. I am well known for this. However, I am a jewelry designer first and foremost, so I decided, this first time, to make a necklace with items which I had chosen from a list Artbeads offered me. And, yes! Of course it is called:

the "Polly Wants a Cracker" necklace. The reason for the name is pretty clear!

I made this piece yesterday, with one of my sons making bird noises, sitting next to me (bird noises are his favorite noises to make!), his attention on the beautiful parrot bead I was working with, and the rest of his attention on the gorgeous full color Artbeads calendar we had received as well. His other favorite thing is CALENDARS! How did they know? As an aside, I have loved the Artbeads online store since day one. I used it frequently while writing and designing my projects in Links, my book. If you cannot find something you are looking for, ALWAYS check Artbeads.com! Also, if you are up late at night and cannot sleep, head over there and do a little shopping. It has things no other stores have. That is is a great prompt for your creativity. --Things such as: My beloved onyx laquered parrot pendant, which I discovered here: Russian Pendants These are truly museum quality beads! Like the traditional folkloric Russian boxes, these pendants are hand painted, each by an expert artist, trained for years in this one particular craft. Each one is stunningly unique and intricate. I encourage you to visit the store to see all of them, as there are many different styles. They are irresistible and might just become part of one of your own signature pieces of hand designed jewelry! I chose the Blue-headed Amazon Parrot pendant (item AB-PAT3) because summer is coming, and I wanted to express the beauty and joyous nature of the upcoming season. I added Swarovski Crystals, see here: swarovski crystal beads I chose bicones because I like rectangles with rectangular pendants and also because their pointed ends fit well into the holes of the main pendant. I tried to mimic the bird's feather colors, using 5mm Capri Blue (5301-BLU5) Emerald (5301EMS) and Peridot(5301-PERS) and in 8mm Capri blue (5301-BLU8)--all bicones.

I made sure to wrap this pendant with a top and bottom bead to accent it and to protect it as well, using the heaviest possible gauge head pin available. This was a 3" long 20 gauge head pin (SS-HP03). The smaller Swarovski dangles I made, including the other 8mm bicone, were all wrapped on 2" sterling silver 22 gauge head pins. I wanted to add joyous swing, brilliance and flash to the pendant, and these crystals did the trick! All the colors played off the exotic bird. His painted feathers did end up looking amazing. To add to that, I also used something new and fabulous which I have never seen before--oooh!!! the potential of some fantastic Enameled Round Copper Links which I chose to add in Neon Yellow (DT-0047). They come in another fabulous shape, Rectangle, as well. You can mix and match them and switch colors! They have incredible potential. Mine are 15 mm in width, to give you an idea of the size. They are located here: Enameled Round Copper Links

* Tip from Jean: when you design with these Enamel Links, check out how large the interior of your sterling jump rings you are using to attach the links together are. You want to make sure the Enamel Links have enough play in between their holes, when you connect them to each other. By this I mean, check the distance between holes from the bottom hole of the top Enamel circle which you are connecting, by using a jump link to the top hole of the next Enamel circle. It may be more of a distance that you thought. If the jump rings are not large enough, you will need to go out and get jump rings with larger inner IDs! That is not something you want to bother with! I am thrilled I chose to locate a 1.2mm sterling 16" necklace from Artbeads as well, because this unusually lovely pendant really deserves shiny sterling to play it up, to my mind...not a cord. On your more relaxed days, choose a cord. There are rainbow colored silk ribbons at Artbeads I admit I did consider for this necklace. They are located here:silk ribbons Additionally,faux suede would be nice in the winter, if you continue to wish to wear your necklace year round. And why not? I plan to!

For now, however, if you are dressing up to go out to dinner at a resort, consider the sterling snake chain (SNKCHN-16B)) first. And relax, soaking up the sun and the compliments as you have Champagne Mimosas! Or the fresh pineapple juice. With the tiny parasols! You can't lose! Artbeads--this was a truly entertaining experience! I look forward to the next time! Is it next month yet? Thank you, Artbeads.com, one of my favorite stores, without question! Contact info: Artbeads.com 11901 137th Ave.Ct. KPN, Unit 100 Gig harbor, WA 98329 T: 253 857 2372 Email: support@artbeads.com