One of my very first necklaces: for my niece

Double-crimping disaster and superfluous jump ring - oh dear! But gold seed beads looking lovely - yay!

When I started beading, I had two nieces (and now I have three! but that's another story) and for my first beading Christmas, I thought somewhat rashly "I know! I can make them necklaces for Christmas!!!"

Well, in retrospect, maybe I could have done with a little more practice at this before making presents to give away, because things kept going wrong all the time, but despite this I spent a very happy Sunday afternoon designing necklaces for them.

This is the necklace I made for my younger niece. It's red, green and gold, of course, to go with the Christmassy theme. The red beads are the same ones that I used here. The long green ones are from another jewellery-maker. The other, larger beads are all from a vintage piece of costume jewellery from the antiques fair. The ones either side of the central red bead are actually a very dark, glossy green. The reds and greens complement each other and make the colours stand out - a lot more than it looks like from this photo, which was taken in wintry December afternoon light. Everything's very symmetrical, which gives the necklace quite a formal, ceremonial look.

I am least happy with my attempt at double-crimping (probably wasn't even necessary, as the beads weren't actually that heavy). Also, I can't for the life of me understand now why I felt the need to add a jump-ring for the lobster-clasp to clasp on to. That beading wire, I now know, is just going to ping out of the gap in the jump ring any time you're least expecting it.

Oh well. You live and learn. And nobody seemed to mind that much.

I still like the alternating gold and Czech glass seed bead section by the clasp.