What Ifs

Do you ever have those "what if" moments? I have them a lot when I'm beading and sometimes my best creations evolve from those moments. Lately, I have been infatuated with shaped beadwork. Ever since I bought Diane Fitzgerald's book, I have been enamored of these little geometric jewels. The open shapes, especially, fascinate me and I have started using them on many of my designs as toggles. I like the solidness of them for clasps because that's a very desirable quality in a clasp. I also like using the shapes for earrings and have just listed a couple pair in my Etsy shop. It was while I was stitching those earrings that I had my "what if". Before you zip the two sides of the shape together, there is a furrow (that's farm country speak for trench) around the shape formed by the two sides. Kind of reminded me of an open pea pod. Which is probably what inspired the what if. Anyway, what if I made one side one row shorter and instead of zipping the sides together, filled that furrow with larger beads - like the open pea pod? Yeah! What if? So I tried it and I liked the results. I was going to make another set of earrings, but in a second what if moment, I thought, "what if I just hung this from a simple chain or satin cord as a pendant?". So I tried that and like it too. Here's the result of all that what iffing. Let me know what you think.