Two Rivoli Collars

Last week I worked on destashing some Swarovski rivolis, and ended up with two necklaces that are made exactly the same way, but look completely different. I had five rivolis in my stash - two Crystal Purple Haze, two jet black, and one tiny aquamarine. I’ve been holding on to them for awhile because I simply got bored with peyote bezels, and I just couldn’t find enough inspiration or motivation to make anything with them.

When I decided to try and use up at least a few of these rivolis, I wanted to try something new - no rings or pendants. The colors were too different to stitch them all together in a bracelet, so I decided to tackle them one at a time, and use each rivoli in a collar. I’ve had some success with big focals on netted collars before, and I thought these crystals would do nicely for the same job.

I started with a Crystal Purple Haze, and chose a palette of tangerine, rootbeer and purple lined Rosaline to complement the unique array of colors in the crystal. Jonquil lined aqua 15/o’s in the bezel pick up on the hints of blue and green and give everything a fun contrast.

With the jet rivoli, I saw an opportunity to use some of my new white-hearts in bright red, so I created a palette of tribal inspired opaques. Although the only opaque 15/o’s I have are orange, I decided not to complement them with the rest of the palette, and stuck with blue, black and yellow in the collar. I love the way the white hearts look as accents in the beadwork - their unique beauty isn’t lost in among the rest of the beads.

Predictably, I got bored after two bezels, so the remaining three rivolis will have to wait their turn. If another inspiration doesn’t come along, I may end up making another collar or two, since these ones turned out so nicely!

What’s your favorite way to use rivolis?

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