February 26, 2009

• Being crafty

  I've actually been pretty good about playing with my jewelry supplies lately. I don't necessarily do it every day, but I have gotten a number of little projects completed.

  I'm excited right now because I actually managed to shift a failed experiment to a success. I always love it when that happens.

  I bought this book on beaded chain designs - I've played around a bit with making chain and really enjoy it. Nothing too fancy, but I like it. I started trying to make this one pair of earrings the other day, but I didn't have the right size mandrel to make the jump rings called for in the directions. I did, however, have one that was just a bit smaller, so I thought I'd give it a try and see how it went.

  Um, yeah, it didn't. Well, I was able to get a couple of rows completed, but when I went to do the last row, which included the beads, there just wasn't enough room on the inside a ring for two other rings plus a bead. Fine, lesson learned; I started to take apart what I had done to salvage what I could.

  I discovered that, when I removed the two rows that were one on top of the other from the larger ring that shaped them into a semi-circle, I was left with a straight chain. Huh. Well, since I wasn't going to use the small rings for anything else, maybe I could use the chain for something. I let them sit for a couple of days.

  Now, I have this one necklace I made ages back - like two years ago at least - that I love, but I had never been able to figure out what to do for coordinating earrings. I'd fiddled with one or two ideas in the past, but I just hadn't come up with anything I liked. But today it hit me. I could use the little dangles I had come up with ages ago and hang them from the chain I had from my experiment the other day. It might look okay. So I gave it a try.

  I think I'm pleased. What do you think?

  

  Sorry, I was going to get a shot up close of the earrings themselves, but the batteries in the camera gave up the ghost after this pic.

  I feel so Martha Stewart now.

  • 2:29 pm
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