Stupid Beading Tricks: What a Sunday!

Yesterday, WM and I spent the entire day cleaning up the bedroom. We washed every last scrap of clothing, sorted the piles, put the piles away, dusted, vacuumed, etc. Sometimes I get an urge to clean and I can’t stop it. Unfortunately, those urges are few and far between.

All of that work yesterday left me with a wide open Sunday, so I grabbed the bead box and had at it.
Yesterday, I discovered that I have lost a lot of Christmas earrings, leaving me with quite a few unmatched trinkets - figure 1. I detached the danglies from the earring hooks, and for the post earrings, I used pliers to twist the post into a loop - figure 2. Next, I took a length chain I had bought from Michaels, added a clasp, then used jump rings to attach the former earrings. Now I have a Christmas charm bracelet. Sure it’s been done before, but never by me, so there!

Christmas charm bracelet

I’m proud of this one. I’ve worked with wire in the past but I never liked the quality of the silver-tone wire I got from the craft stores. It wrapped very well, but lost its luster shortly thereafter. So I stuck with copper for a bit. Now back in August, Mom and I went to a bead show in King of Prussia. I found a wire vendor there (Para Wire) and discovered that they have non-tarnish silver plated wire. So I bought a spool of the 22 gauge. It’s incredibly easy to work with and stays so shiny. This took me quite a while to finish (even though I managed to screw something up, not saying what) but the silver wire and the candy-colored glass beads are so pretty together!

Wire wrapped bracelet

And I made the clasp myself!

Yes, friends, I was on a roll. So I kept going. The pendant came from a $1.00 pair of earrings at Target. The round gemstone beads were from eBay, the silvery beads are from Michaels and the wire is from my roll of Para Wire. I made this clasp too, and used my pliers to squish it and give it a hammered look. Until I buy a thicker gauge wire, I think I’ll stick with the double-wire clasp like the bracelet has. It seems stronger.

I had beads left over, so I took some more wire and made earrings! (The earring wires came from Michael’s.

Naturals

It’s been over a year since I took that first beading class and I’m still making jewelry. Imagine that!

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Programming note: The “Welcome Martha!” note’s going to stay at the top of the homepage for the time being. This could be my ONE shot at web fame, so I’m going to reach for the brass ring.

Posted at: 9:55 pm in Beadiness, General, Play, Webkeeping | Permanent Link | 1 Comment - add yours! »
Tags: beading, jewelry, wirework

Stupid Beading Tricks: donut beads and wirework

Guess what I found? Cool beads! So I made a necklace. Instead of dangling the donut bead like a pendant, I looped each side of the necklace through it. I was inspired by this post on Craftster back in February.

Because of the color scheme and because I’m overdosing in fruit and vegetables lately, I’m calling it my Kiwi-strawberry necklace. But..I have nothing to wear this with. I may put it away in case the economy gets worse and I have to make a living hawking my wares. Or I may buy a top.

For the second one, I was messing around with craft wire (I want to say 18 or 16 gauge) and my round nose pliers. I had the blue and purple caged beads already (the title of this post was so close to being “I know why the caged bead sings.” You’re welcome.) but I didn’t know of an easy way to connect them with the usual beading wire and crimping. Inspired by a billion craft sites on the web, I cut the wire to 1/2″ lengths and made double-looped link. I connected the caged beads to the links, and voilà! A length of beaded chain too long to be a bracelet and two short to be a necklace.

No biggie…I cut some chain and added it to the ends along with a clasp and voilà! a necklace that I’m pretty jazzed about and will most likely wear to work today. I need to find a huge spool of plain ol’ copper wire to play with. Home Depot doesn’t carry plain wire that I need, believe it or not.

Anyway, a sad day ahead at work, as the people who took the buyouts offered at the paper are working their last day today. Plus, three more non-buyout employees on the news side are working their last day today. Take from that what you want to.

Enjoy the Memorial Day weekend, and remember why we have off on Monday and the guys and girls who are “over there” right now.

Links I love:
Gilbert & Frech. I buy beads from them via eBay.
Craftster. The enthusiasm for hand-crafted items on this site is contagious!

PS: 10.5 lbs lost!

Posted at: 8:00 am in Beadiness, General, Play, Work, YAD - Yet Another Diet | Permanent Link | 2 Comments - add yours! »
Tags: Beadiness, beading, jewelry, wireworking