Weekend Projects

This weekend I decided it would be fun to create some jewelry to give to my friend Pat, to include in her upcoming art & crafts booth. I already had the beautiful beads, obtained from a flea market, so to get started I ran to our local super center store...which is awful and a topic for another time... and grabbed some elastic bead cord. I get my little "nest" made to be able to watch television and craft bracelets at the same time.

I should say at this point that I am extremely night blind, and this can even hinder my sight in the house at night. The holes on the beads are extremely small and nearly the exact size as my cord and it takes lots of beads to make one bracelet. Anytime anyone brings anything new into the livingroom the cats must investigate. Our little gray cat Lizzie Tu feels the need to be in the middle of everything so she was the first to offer her help with my bracelet project. First she tried to help me pick out the beads by dipping her paw into the tray and flipping the beads out onto the floor. Then she discovered that if she got under the table she could reach up and snatch the end of the bead cord to get my attention. Since the cord had a nice elastic snap it was great fun. Now this was ok until she pulled her end so hard it made the nearly finished bracelet at my end of the cord pop out of my hands and the beads all fell off!

Our calico cat Callie Ann meandered out of the bedroom to check out why I was upset with Lizzie Tu. When she discovered that I was doing something she also thought I needed help. She jumped up on the table looked at all the neat stuff on display and decided to take off with one of the finished bracelets. So in addition to trying to see the bead holes I was constantly trying to keep the cats from helping. I love doing crafts of all kinds, but this project was really fun and got my creative juices flowing so much that I looked up and it was 2am so off to bed. Then when I had the chance to sleep late Saturday morning I woke up bright and early and played with the bracelets all day.  

Late in the evening I had several really pretty glass beads, a few of the metal spacer beads, and decided they needed to be turned into earrings...so a new project was born. I found my box of small paper clips and needle nose pliers for the earring project. Taking the straightened out paper clip and using the pliers to bend the end of the paper clip into a "design" to form the bottom of the earring. Then add the beads and use the pliers to bend the top so that pierced earring wires can be added as soon as I go purchase them. This may sound strange, but they turned out very pretty. I plan on making more earrings today because again last night it was 2am before I realized. Making the first earring is the fun part, but trying to make the second matching earring is not as easy. Each pair will certainly be a one of a kind work of art.

After fighting off the cats from my jewelry making process, my granddaughter came over and loved the bracelets. She managed to take off with four of them leaving me with twenty-nine bracelets to give my friend. I guess the good thing about her taking them, is that if a teenager liked them well enough to want to wear them, they might actually sell at the arts and crafts event. I made all the bracelets with only two packages of cord $4.50 so that was cheap entertainment for the weekend!