Bird nest necklaces

Have you seen the amazing bird nest jewelry out there?  I saw a fabulous tutorial for a necklace from Maria over at Agape Love Designs and immediately knew I wanted one.  At first I thought I would just buy one from her shop, but then as I looked at the tutorial, I thought, "Hey, I can probably do a decent job making that!"  I thought it would make a great Christmas gift, so Mom, if you're reading this, stop right now if you don't want to spoil the surprise!  You've been warned.

It's taken me some time to round up everything.  I've never made jewelry before, so this was a bit daunting.  I looked high and low for glass pearls but either didn't find any that I liked or didn't want to buy several strands to get the colors I wanted.  I asked Maria where she get hers and she steered me to Etsy.  (What did I ever do before I started browsing there?)  A quick search still wasn't finding what I wanted, but then I happened across a shop that offered strings of multi-colored potato pearls that seemed really reasonable.  I thought, "Hey, this will be great, I just cut the string apart and I have plenty of pearls.  They're even kind of egg shaped.  Perfect!"

I got my pearl string in the mail and loved the great jewel tones.  Hubby and I both decided it was just too pretty to cut apart and should be made into a necklace, so I went to order another string.  What's this, a listing for five strings?  I'll take it!  I'm so happy I did, my second order has some great egg-shaped pearls.  I think they look amazing in the nests.

I sat down with all my supplies and was surprised at how quickly my first nest came together.  
This one is for me.  I tried a different color to represent each of my six kids.  They like to argue over who claims what favorite color, so I know who I represent with each one, but I figure I'll let them decide which one belongs to each child. Overall, not bad for my first attempt.

I put it on a chain and I love it.  I can't wait to wear it in public and see what kind of comments I get.

I tried something a little different on the one for my mom, I noticed as I was sorting through pearls that I had ones that corresponded well to the birthstones for all of my siblings.  So, starting at the top there is the dark green for me (May) then August, March, May, November, May, April and February in the middle.

What do you think?