So I mentioned in the comments to my own article for the Vivre contest that I love jewelry. And I do. It's something I inherented from my grandma Pavlick. I have vintage costume pieces, expensive estate pieces, I have pieces from Suzanne Sommers - and I can make my own necklaces.

How I came to be able to make necklaces is because of my best friend, Erin McQuillan. She and her mother Nancy made and sold jewelry. (Erin passed away in 2005 after a double lung transplant, she had cystic fibrosis. I still miss her terribly.) Nancy still makes and sells jewelry from her website - http://www.cyrina.com/

Erin taught me some basic beading. How to set up, string, etc. I'll probably never be as good as her but I do enjoy making it.

Since I was born in 1976 I've kind of been on a 70s kick. I look for vintage 70s pieces. I even bought some beading books from the 70s. Of course their instructions are how to do it with needle and thread, but I did figure out how to modify some of the designs to make it with wire.

(The only vintage jewelry I can't buy is earrings. Due to a nickle allergy my ears puff up terribly. Thank God for the website Simply Whispers which sells nickle free jewelry. I noticed recently that they even sell the pieces for making dangle earrings - nickle free of course. So that might be the next thing I try.)

Well, I thought I'd share some of the stuff I've made. From simple single strands, to some of my 70s inspired stuff. I even made a scarf decoration which I'll be sharing with you tonight. Sorry the pictures aren't better quality. I took them quickly so I could show them off.

No, I don't sell my stuff. It's not as good as Erin's was for one thing. I wouldn't know how to price it for another.

The one with the butterfly and the scarf decoration are both my twists on some of the 70s designs. And yes, that is a Chai on the ends of the scarf decoration. (For those that don't know that's a Hebrew letter that means "life". You can look it up on Wikipedia.) The closine strand is one I made for my mom to go with a tourquoise shirt she bought - it also happens to have a white collar and white trimes plus gold buttons, so it's tourquoise, gold, and white closine beads, which I hate working with as they're hollow and the wire always gets stuck while threading them. Finally there's a simple strand with a treble clef pendant I made for myself. (Don't forget, I am a singer.) The beads incluse little white carved roses and white freshwater pearls.

Like I said, I'm crazy about jewelry. You should see this bracelett I picked up at the Salvation Army. Black plastic covered in little mirrors cut in a "diamond" shape. Can't wait to wear it.