Owl'll be seeing you...hanging around my neck.

From a very early age I had a fear of owls. If I'm to be completely honest, I have a fear of pretty much all birds except penguins. Penguins just look too cuddly to be scary. Owls, on the other hand, were creepy and terrifying to me. So imagine my surprise when, all of a sudden, I developed a fascination with them. Maybe it's because of all of the adorable illustrations and decorations I've been seeing. I dunno. Now they're adorable. Go figure.

I love my new necklace!

While hanging out at the mall recently, I saw a beautiful owl necklace and immediately thought, "I want that", and then I thought, "I can make that", and then I thought, "Hmm...I'm going to need an owl pendant." And I found one I loved at Michael's!

Some of the supplies needed for this necklace.

I got my darling owl home, dragged out my beading supplies, and got to work. I had bought some gorgeous velvety beads at Michael's on clearance (I always check out the clearance sections of craft stores. You can find some amazing stuff for almost nothing.) and had been looking for an opportunity to use them.

The finished product.

Ingredients:

• Pendant
• Beads (4 each velvety and silvertone spacers)
• Tigertail (6 inches)
• Crimp Beads (2)
• Chain (2 pieces 7.5 inches long)
• Clasp
• Pliers, Snips, Crimp Tool
• Jump Rings (4)

This is a very simple necklace, so I didn't bother taking step-by-step photos. String a crimp bead and a jump ring onto the tigertail and crimp. String your beads on in this order: velvet, spacer, velvet, spacer, pendant, spacer, velvet, spacer. Add another crimp bead and jump ring and crimp to hold it all into place. Add your chains on to each side of your assembled beaded segment. Attach the clasp to the ends of the chain with your jump rings. Wear with much pride and love for your new bit of prettiness. You can vary the length of the necklace by using more or less chain. I made this one this length because, well, I wear a lot of low necklines.

The perfect length for my favorite top. I'm going through my grey phase.

By the way, I had a bit of a wardrobe malfunction when I wore this for the first time. I hadn't closed one jump ring properly and the tigertail popped off. My ever-witty husband, Seán, suggested I take the problem up with quality control.