I'm in a Turquoise State of Mind

I seem to be in a turquoise mood this week - I'm following up on the turquoise bracelet I made Wednesday with this statement necklace:

Genuine turquoise and sterling silver statement necklace

I've had this design rolling around in my head for about 4 months - it started when I came across this absolutely stunning turquoise: it's a deep teal; blue with just a tinge of green, and in addition to its own natural luster, it is highly polished, catching and reflecting the light beautifully.

I found these incredible sterling silver tubes at a show at least 5 years ago, if not more, and put them aside. As you do. In a safe place.

When I pulled the strands of turquoise 4 months ago, I wanted to put them with these tubes. But, guess what? I couldn't find the tubes. Anywhere. I looked everywhere I could think to look, and then the holidays started, and other things moved to the top of my "to do" list, so the turquoise necklace idea had to wait.

But on the heels of finishing the turquoise bracelet, I decided to look, again, for the sterling tubes. I guess no one who knows me (or, who also hoards one-of-a-kind treasures like this) will be surprised to learn that they were in the very first place I had looked all those months ago - and I'd actually looked there SEVERAL times. But there they were yesterday, right off the bat, so let's just go with it.

In my head, I had seen these as open tubes, and my multistrand idea was going to work perfectly (like ALL ideas in my head do!). But upon closer examination, my beautiful sterling tubes had a single, small hole at the end, and I just couldn't figure out a way to make them work the way I'd planned.

Until I started playing with them, and discovered that the ends of them are removable! And the ends aren't threaded, so when I finally got the endcaps off (they were on there quite securely!), the tubes looked like long curved cones (they are 4.75 inches long) - no ugly threads; so I decided to just use them without the endcaps.

I strung 4 strands of turquoise, wired it into the tubes, and connected it to a sterling silver toggle (after adding a little more turquoise and sterling at the back).

And, it's available in my Etsy shop!