All the ways you are wonderful!
How would you feel if you had 23 words describing how wonderful you are from people who care about you? Hopefully pretty amazing.
That’s what a class in our school thought when they commissioned a necklace for their retiring teacher.
A beautiful idea but how do you get 23 words on ONE necklace? That is the challenge I was facing. Exciting and a bit daunting!
The parents involved (there are two or three that represented the group) worked closely with me to figure out the best design.
The first step was to review the designs I have done in the past and try to adapt it to the style of the teacher. This teacher likes dramatic jewelry and according to one of the parents almost seems to dress around her jewelry. I like this woman!
So we decided to base the design around these personalized “twigs”.
Shiny Twig Necklace
What next? We needed something else to make it more dramatic. How about these kyanite “spears”? That’s a yes all around.
Kyanite from kyanos meaning deep blue
Now, how about a third element? Things always look better in threes. Let’s go for it. What to add? Well, what other colours could we pick up in the kyanite? There’s sort of a coppery colour – let’s try copper! I have to credit lovely Ashley at Capilano Rock and Gem for the idea – sooo helpful.
What do you think?
The copper tag picks up the copper in the kyanite.
We worked with different chain types as well. My first thought was a rectangular chain to echo the shape of the tags and stones. Well, you live and you learn. Tags pull rectangular links down. It just doesn’t work so we went with a heavy round link chain.
Now to hammer 23 pieces of silver and copper and stamp out the words. Here we go…
The letters on these stamps are about 1.5mm high.
Copper, silver, copper, silver...
Phew! Twenty two down and one to go…”Merci/2011″.
Words of praise captured on metal.
At last, it’s all ready to go!
Deliciously heavy and jingly. Hmm...I want to keep it.
A necklace with this much thoughtfulness built into it needs a special display. The creative parents behind this project came up with a beautiful solution. They created some word art using the words that were chosen and placed the print on the inside of a shadow box. The necklace was pinned up inside of the box behind the print.
Word art!
The other side of the page listed all of the words, the reasons the children chose the words and each child’s name. I had to try hard not to get teary myself and she wasn’t even my child’s teacher! Sniff.
Clearly a much loved teacher. I think she likes it!
trib·ute n.
1. A gift, payment, declaration, or other acknowledgment of gratitude, respect, or admiration
This necklace is now available in my shop. I have named it the Tribute Necklace.
Now who would you like to pay tribute to? (You can pay tribute to yourself too.)
***Special note of thanks to the parents that worked with me and trusted me to make this special necklace!***
