Slightly soppy, but my heroes are my parents (sorry couldn't pick just one of them).

They're both crafty people, Mum taught me about knitting, crochet, and sewing, I get the artistic bit off my Dad who is a fantastic artist, especially of portraits. The art has gone slightly on hold though since he retired as he was able to fulfill his dream of turning their garage into a workshop where he has all his woodworking/woodturning tools.

It's thanks to Dad that I started jewellery making because at a very young age I raided the garage and found wire, tools, and a soldering iron. At 13 I got my own soldering iron as a Christmas present and proper jewellery tools because Dad was fed up with his stuff going missing.

My parents have always encouraged me, and more importantly challenged me to try more complicated things. In return I do the same back, which is how I ended up with a hand turned ebony crochet hook. They also spoil me rotten, regularly funding my crafting habit, as well as spending time and money doing epic DIY tasks, the massive decking stucture in my back garden being just one.

Anyhow, the necklace. The chain is made up of "S"'s which is my Mum's initial. The pendant is 2 back to back "R"'s for my Dad.
The beads are part of a necklace left to me by my Grandma. She left me lots of costume jewellery and told us we weren't to sell it. She knew I made jewellery so I hope she doesn't mind that I've been dismantling things.

Slightly better view of the pendant.



Hope you all like it. I'm dead chuffed with it, it's far better than the toy idea I originally started. I've also managed to complete my own personal challenge of doing a different type of craft in every round.

Aah, it's beautiful!

wow thats awesome + a great tale behind it, well done! x

Wow, it's stunning, you've done your family proud!

It's gorgeous!

Beautiful design, and colour! I especially love the 'R' part.

It is beautiful and really thoughtful!

The necklace is stunning, I'm sure your parents are very proud. Really nice story - well done you!

Thanks for all the positive comments.
I love the colours too, blue and silver are my favourites. As for the R, I had great fun trying to make that. It was too small to fit into my vice, so blokey had to sit holding it very carefully while I did the wire wrapping. He's not particularly dextrous so it was all a bit challenging.

I haven't had chance to put a picture of it on my blog yet so my parents haven't seen it. They're very skilled at crafts, but hopeless with computers so trying to direct them to anywhere other than my website is far too complicated.

Oh I forgot to say.
Vote for me! etc, etc, blah, blah