Stupid Beading Tricks: What a Sunday!
21 Sep
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.
