A couple of beady friends of mine—Lindsay Starr and Sherri Stokey—recently came up with an idea for a series of blog hops, which they’ve called Beading Back in Time. Each quarter will be devoted to a different time period and the first, of course, is pre-Human.
Conveniently, in my stash I had two beautiful ammonite focals. In case you’re wondering, ammonites were a group of molluscs which populated the ancient oceans for several hundred million years, from the Devonian period until the big extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous period that wiped out some 75% of the life on our planet. Although the fossils look similar to today’s Nautilus species, with their distinctive multi-chambered spiral shells, they were more closely related to octopus, squid and cuttlefish.
The first piece features a ceramic ammonite focal, made by Peruzi, with a lovely verdigris-like appearance. I wanted to evoke the feel of the ocean, so I paired it with some aqua beads in various shapes and sizes, and a silk ribbon that made me think of seagrasses waving gently in the water.
The second focal is a real, fossilized ammonite that a friend gave me in a swap. The front, with its distinctive spiral ranges from a dark olive green to coppery brown, but the back still has glimmering remnants of the shell’s nacreous origins. I found some unusual Czech glass beads with a pitted rock-like appearance and some interesting double coin pearls with a golden shimmer to go with the ammonite fossil. And in case you’re wondering, oysters are a very old variety of mollusk and both pearl and oyster fossils have been found—I looked it up!
Thank you Lindsay and Sherri for the great challenge. Now I need to start thinking about the next time period—early human!
Co-hostess: Lindsay Starr of Phantasm Creations
Co-hostess: Sherri Stokey of Knot Just Macrame
Kelly Rodgers of Beadin’ Black & Blue
Michelle McCarthy of Firefly Design Studio
Caroline Dewison of Blueberribeads
Melissa Trudinger of Boho Bird Jewellery <– YOU ARE HERE!
Stephanie and Chris Haussler of Pixibug Designs
beadrecipes 
Beautiful, complete, deeply satisfying designs!
Love them Melissa! I would definitely wear either one! Thank you so much for playing!
Those are really beautiful Melissa! I love the colors of both designs and the movement in the first design and the texture in the second design!!! Lovely! Be Blessed!
So pretty! That teal colored is calling to me…. 😀
I would so love either piece! Gorgeous designs and you have wonderful taste in ammonites!
Love those ammonites! Beautiful use of them!!!! Thanks for sharing!
Ammonites! One can never have too many ammonites! They are gorgeous, and so different!
And now I’m jealous. I want a real ammonite! Both necklaces are lovely, but the second one especially 🙂
It’s great to see the different directions you took these.