my amazing gift from yourlibrarian

[nenya_kanadka]

I've been travelling since the last week of April and have been extremely curious about what I might receive in this exchange. Came home to day to this amazing set of necklaces from yourlibrarian!



A closeup of some of my faves--but she sent me not one, not two, but EIGHT beautiful wearable works of art!

More pics below the cut (click to embiggen previews).

Seriously, there's eight of them!



Several of them are Star Trek themed...



I love the Starfleet insignia, am charmed by the Vulcan hand pendant, and the Enterprise registry plaque has me going "WHERE did you get these??"

Several are space-themed generally...



I'm wearing the astronaut with Earth reflected in their helmet right now--I think it's my favourite. The big dramatic galaxy one is less of a necklace and more of a royal chain of office and I love it. (Not sure if the beautiful iridescent purpley-blue colour of the beads on that one comes through in the photo, but they're amazing. And the sparkly pendant must be 2" across!) And the little gas giants are cute as heck.

Then there's "I want to believe" and another astronaut, this time accompanied by rockets, suns, and moons:




I can't stop grinning! They're all made with such care and just the most gorgeous and creative choices of beading. (Seriously--I am the kind of person who goes to a bead store and coos over all the gorgeous possibilities for sale, and then rarely actually buys them because she isn't quite sure what she'd ever do with them. I am having what my friend calls "a religious experience in the stationery aisle" right now. Eee.) Even the clasps on the ends are hearts or stars or something! Seriously. So cool.

Thank you so much, yourlibrarian! I'm going to have to find a way to display these when I'm not wearing them, because they're so cool to look at. :D

Comments

[dirtygreatknife]

Those are so gorgeous!

[mific]

Very cute, and Star Trek, and SPAAACE!!

[laridian]

These are so colorful and wonderful! What beautiful work! :D And space themed!

[yourlibrarian]

I'm so delighted you're happy with them :)

I was very glad to get your request as two things stood out to me: Star Trek and science fiction and space stuff generally, and that there was a good range of favorite colors: "cool purplish-blues, warm turquoise-blues, bright blues and soft weathered blues. Also purples and greens...Rainbow anything is generally great." I can work with any set of colors but the more favorites there are (or at least fewest hated colors) the better, so I can do a wider range of things.

I'm a Trek fan myself so it was fun to look for pendants. I had already seen a few space themed ones locally but I picked up the 2 silver/1 gold planets while on a trip to New Orleans when I checked out a local bead shop there, and then matched them up with some turquoise stars in an all blue necklace.

I'm particularly glad that you liked the Enterprise plaque one because I was excited by that find -- it was definitely a more insiderish reference. The downside is that it was particularly small, but I figured the necklaces ran the gamut anyway from short to medium to long so that regardless of what you were wearing or what your preferences were, some of them should suit.

I tried using a lot of shades of blue as well as including green and purple in the overall set, and made the one you liked the best as a more rainbow look even if it only used blue, green and the reddish purple. For the clasp there I used a ribbed design that matched the ribbing on the spacesuit and antenna.

The blue/green stars ones with the spaceship was a little more X-Files than Trek but the ship came with the astronaut/rockets set so I made a separate one for that. I figured at least you should like the colors and the stars made for a bit of a spikier look. For the clasp I used a connector that looked like an infinity symbol to me.

The astronaut and rockets were gold but there were red and blue glass insets on them and silver/clear for the astronaut's faceplate so I chose the gold and silver sun-moon beads interspersed with a light blue to match the insets, and then the star and moon toggle.

The long purple one's pendant was supposed to be a supernova and it made for a bigger size and longer length of necklace.

For both the plaque and the Federation insignia pendant ones, I was trying to echo the science/command/engineering colors. So the plaque was already an antique gold color so I used blue and red to set that off in the uniform shades. With the insignia necklace I gave it a bit of a "rainbow" look in that it was batches of colors, with blue, red, and yellow sections delineated with a silver bead that was supposed to echo the ranks on the uniform wrists. The colors there weren't an exact match but more of a theme.

With the Vulcan hand salute one, I used a few shades of purple, and although they're kind of abstract, the silver beads are doves. I had the idea to use them because the full phrase is "Live long and prosper" with the response of "Peace and long life."

[isis]

These are all very cool - you did an amazing job!

[nenya_kanadka]

OMG, I love all these details! (Finally getting back here to respond!)

I'm glad the space theme was easy to work with, and I LOVE your choices of colours! I had a distinct "Were these colour schemes made for me??" moment before realizing that actually they probably were. ;-) I actually worried during my signup that I'd been too tl;dr or too picky in my colour wants and DNWs, so it's awesome to hear that that turned out to be helpful in the crafting process. I'm very visual and the colour of something can totally make or break it, and these are all just such a pleasure in that regard. <3<3<3

I'm just blown away by the variety and quality of the pendants! For real, even one or two of these, or just a couple of the pendants by themselves, would have been an amazing gift. The whole package all at once is making me feel a bit like a dragon with a shiny new hoard. :D

And yes to the wide range of sizes! From the little light casual ones to the great big dramatic ones...I'm spoiled for choice and I love it.

Where did you even find the Enterprise one? The Starfleet delta is pretty common to find (I love this one, mind you, the heft of it and the material is just perfect) but I've never seen anything like a starship dedication plaque for something like this. I wonder if they make them for Voyager or Discovery...hmm.

I absolutely love the green-blue-purple range of colours in the alien spacesuit necklace. The colours are in such harmony with one another. They're very calming and gentle while having just enough variety in colours and bead size to be interesting. Just, ahhh, lovely. (And the pendant there! I keep squeeing every time I catch sight of it.)

The X-Files was actually one of my very first fandoms, and while I wasn't in it for very long or very deeply, I have a certain nostalgia for it. It also led directly to Star Trek fandom for me (via similarly-scheduled TV reruns, lol). So I was delighted to get that one, and just cracked up at the UFO pendant. Thank you for veering a little off-brief there! :D And yes the clasp immediately looked like an infinity symbol to me too.

The sun and moon beads on the astronaut/rockets necklace would almost make a whole necklace on their own, but the pendants add a bit of pizzazz. The overall effect to me is pale blue with gold, which is really pretty, and I love the weight of the beads themselves.

Supernova! Oh right. :D That makes total sense. I love how the general effect of that one is very much stars in the void, with the (utterly amazing, they bring me such deep glee) indigo/purple round beads for the depths of interstellar space, and then the smaller star beads and the giant exploding nova (and/or zoomed-out galactic view). It's seriously a necklace to build an outfit around, and I have an idea or two for how I'd do that. :-)

I didn't catch that the white beads on the Vulcan necklace were doves until you mentioned it (they looked like bones to me somehow, which confused me slightly) but now that I look at them closer they totally are. I love when people remember the "Peace and long life" part of the greeting, so that was perfect. <3

I did immediately notice the departmental colours on the two Starfleet necklaces, though! It was one of those "Either my creator is in the fandom or they've done enough research to know what pings right" moments as soon as I opened both of those. <3 And you know, the colours have varied over time, so I'm just going to read the pale blue on the Starfleet delta necklace as a reference to Spock's and McCoy's uniforms on days when their costumes had been through the wash a whole lot ;-) and if the red's a bit less brilliant, I think it's prettier that way and it could call to mind the burgundy uniforms from the TOS movies as well. So it all works.

Thank you so much for all of these, seriously. I can't get over the time it must have taken and the gorgeousness of the results. And thank you for nerding out about the process with me in comments! I was hoping I'd get to squee over some of the details, and it turns out that so many of the little things I noticed and loved were ones you did on purpose. Eee. :D

<3

[yourlibrarian]

I'm very visual and the colour of something can totally make or break it, and these are all just such a pleasure in that regard.

So glad to hear that :) I'm much the same when I buy clothes, it tends to be color first, then fit, then comfort of the fabric.

That would be really cool to find the plaques for the other series. I found the Trek specific pendants through Amazon, but I didn't see any others.

Good to know the X-Files one fit the bill :) And also that all the little details make sense.

Enjoy the hoard!

[dreamkist]

Those are amazing!

[celli]

Wow!!!!

[semielliptical]

The necklaces are amazing! Beautiful combinations of colors, and a great commitment to the space/sci fi theme!

[jesse_the_k]

I love how they take the theme and stretch it so many ways, and are also nice in isolation. You'll be in orbit wearing those.