With a website called Bead Happily Ever After, it’s probably pretty obvious that I LOVE beads! 🙂

I‘ve been collecting and designing jewelry with both vintage and contemporary beads for years now. More recently, I’ve begun to sell beads on my website and also on etsy.

My specialty is vintage beads, but I am crazy about all kinds of beads including those created by bead artisans – both in glass and polymer clay. There is such joy in making something special with beautiful beads!

Here’s a set I’m working on that incorporates some fabulous clay beads. Notice the lovely layering of shapes on the pendant.

Aren’t the coordinating diamond-shaped clay beads pretty, too?

For accents, I’m using genuine amethysts (the rectangles), and Swarovski crystals (rounds and bicones).

As you can see by the tape on the ends, I’m still pondering the style of clasp I want. The little ziplock bag on the left holds the exact beads that I’ll use to make matching earrings. Gathering those “earring beads” in a bag is a tip I learned the hard way. It’s so much easier to do it when designing the necklace – in case there will be a delay between finishing the necklace and actually making the earrings. Trying to find exactly what you need later can be difficult, especially if you’ve cleaned up the worktable in the meantime. 😉