Thursday, May 22, 2008

The Tibetan Collection

I was looking thru my beads the other night and pulled out my "ethnic" drawer to play with my Tibetan, Nepalese and Indian pendants and beads. This is what i've come up with so far....

Big chunky beads of coral with a sterling silver clasp, and a very old coral and turquoise pendant, capped with hand tooled silver...

Here is a close up of the pendant...

All of the earrings are made with sterling silver earwires. These are modern day honey amber and copal beads from Nepal. Two pair have a bit of turquoise added too.

This necklace is put together with my own handmade chain. The modern design, using coral chips, showcases another very old Tibetan lapis pendant that i have held onto for years. I think it might be happier out of the drawer and worn around some one's neck...

Here is a close up of the lapis piece and chain work

I love these little silver capped beads from Tibet. I made the turquoise ones rather plain, while the lapis beads have some old red trade beads i got from a dealer who trades in mostly African and Native American beads, old and new. These he told me are old Native American trade beads. I thought they looked really nice together. The little metal turtle(brass?) is Tibetan, but the dealer didn't know much about him. He has many different designs and letters on his shell and on the underside. I'm not sure what i will do with him, but he will be part of a necklace i think. Now i need to put together some bracelets! I'll include more pictures when i get some more work done.