Benefit Auction for New Growth Necklace

Hello all!  Tragedy struck a friend of mine this Monday, September 29th.  He, his girlfriend, her toddler son, and 40 other people, were made homeless by a raging apartment fire in Antioch TN.  You can read the news report about the fire HERE.  Although the fire did not originate in their unit and some hard items may be salvageable, all soft items like clothes, furniture, and books are lost due to smoke and water damage.  

I cannot imagine what we would do if we were in their situation, so I am auctioning off a necklace and matching earrings on my Facebook page.  Auction starts now, and ends Friday (10/03) at 12 midnight, PST.  All information can be found on the Facebook picture, and all bidding will be handled there in the comments.  

I wanted to show more detailed pictures and descriptions of the piece here so multiple pictures don't confuse the Facebook bidding. 

The focal point of the necklace is one of my polymer clay faces, in a silvery lustrous green with a satin finish.  To go with it, I chose a palette of rich emerald greens and glistening grays, so the face would remain the central focus of the finished piece.  Here you can see my work tray with the capture for the face just barely started.

 

I continued with this palette for the entire capture - here is the front when I finished it, before embellishment:

And, as many of you know, the back of the capture is as interesting at the front:

As I was working on the capture, I was also thinking of how I wanted to embellish the face.  I started thinking about the concept of "new growth", and how we all hit setbacks in life, but somehow survive and grow through them.  Not only does this theme resonate for the purpose of this benefit auction, but also personally for me...and probably a lot of other people.  

Along these lines I decided to use some vintage glass leaves in the looped fringe, and vintage glass flowers as surface embellishment on the face.  They are a subtle transparent grey in color, and don't distract from the serene face.  This necklace reminds me of greenery that has had a brutal pruning, but recovers and grows more beautiful and stronger than before.  

The strap is partially strung with seed beads and sparkly peanut beads, and partially a weighty textured chain, antique silver in color.  The clasp is a matching pewter S-hook that blends right in.  Currently the necklace is 25.5" in length - the winning bidder should let me know if this needs to be a bit longer or shorter.

As a bonus, I also made matching earrings with the vintage leaves from the fringe, and seed beads and peanuts from the strap.  The sterling silver loops are wire wrapped, and the ear wires are sterling too.  I can change the ear wires to hypoallergenic niobium should the winner require.  

Thank you for looking!  If you are not bidding on the auction, please share it far and wide with all your friends.  As always you can follow my beading exploits on my Facebook page, or shop my Etsy store at any time.