Jewelry continued

I've been making and repairing more jewelry!

I made all these-

Purple butterfly earrings

Purple rose with clear/silver-lined diamond shaped earrings

Green/gold-lined diamond shaped earrings

Wooden bead earrings and necklace

Ring made of chain (front side)

Ring made of chain (back side)

This necklace matches the bracelet I posted last time

These are things I found and repaired-

Green ombre bracelet

Purple metal butterfly earrings

Making Jewelry

This weekend, one of my best friends ever came to visit! We went to the Zoo, made crafts, and had lots of fun! (Zoo pictures and more craft pictures will come later this week!)

Today, I got a package from Fire Mountain Gems and Beads! Wooo!!! I made a pair of earrings and a bracelet. The bracelet was simple--I just used jump rings to connect some gem connectors and added a clasp. Here's a picture of it:

Here's how I made the earrings:

1. Gather materials:
-pliers-just a simple pair from the toolbox to help open the jump rings
-jewelry wire-pliable enough to bend to the shape you want it, but strong enough to hold
-leaf and flower dangly beads-The brand is "Cool Chaser." These look fancy, but they're actually kids' plastic beads. You can't really tell the difference from fancy beads, and they're lightweight and cheap!
-ear wires-I like the shorter ones because the longer ones make the area behind my ear on my head itchy.

2. Lay out beads in sequence to see how the earrings will go together.

3. Cut about 4 or 5 inches of jewelry wire--enough to double up, hold all the beads, and put twisty space between each bead (Keep reading. This will become more clear!)

4. Put the bead that will be on the bottom of the earring in the center of the wire and twist the wire around twice. This creates a little home for the bottom bead. I left a little wiggle room so it can sort of sway around, but it's still secure, and it is a little bit separated from the next bead.

5. Pull the wires a little bit apart from each other, string one bead on the left, twist the wires twice, then string one bead on the right and twist the wires twice. Repeat for the remaining beads.

6. Add the ear wire. I just slipped it down one of the wires, twisted the wires together, then folded the twisted part back down and retwisted it around itself, leaving no pokey wires anywhere!

7. Finally, you can admire your finished product!!

The earrings only took about ten minutes to make, and I would estimate my cost to make them was about $1 for the pair. Plus, it was super fun!

Yard Sale Saturday

On Friday night, I pulled up some yard sales on Craig's List, I made a route map, and I got some cash from the ATM. On Saturday morning, I got Ashley up, and we went to some yard sales. There's good news and bad news here:
The good news is that I found a great yard sale with tons of funky, weird, unique, vintage, and cool jewelry. The bad news is that we found only ONE yard sale. The other seven or so were non-existent. This made me very angry. Oh, well. At least I found these cool necklaces:

This one is fishy! It's vintage-y, with green enamel accents on gold

Here's a detail of the main fish

This one is kind of 80s but also kind of 50s, and I think it's totally awesome!

This one's a short freshwater pearl strand cluster that will be pretty with sweaters or a simple black shirt

Here's a detail of the pearls

This one, unfortunately broke the first time I wore it because I got it caught under my desk, but I am crafty, so I fixed it! Go me!

These are the elements I liked the best about the previous piece

I love that this one has so much going on. Lots of dangly things!

Look at those tiny Queen Elizabeth II coins! I love the detail!

This one is a Hawaiian woven necklace with shells and seeds. I probably won't wear it, but it looks cook hanging on my door handle right now.

Here, you can see the seeds and shells close up.

I hope you enjoyed looking at these! I'd love to see any you've found!

Glitterizing

Hoo boy, I am becoming absolutely obsessed with glitter. I mean, I've always loved its sparkling, mesmerizing powers. But today, I combined it with Mod Podge, and I have become one dangerous person. I was just going to try one hair bow, but I made a little too much glittery mix, so I made a second hair bow, then I glittered the front of my weekly planner and a binder clip. Now, I kind of want to paint it into my hair. But, I have stopped myself (mostly because I ran out of glitter mix). So, here are some pictures of what I did and some notes about how I did it:

1. Gather supplies. These include:
-mod podge (I only had the kind for paper, but it seems to have worked just fine!)
-paint brush (I hope this wasn't one of Ashley's good ones)
-empty butter tub (I keep a couple of these around because they come in handy for little projects like this!)
-package of hair bows from dollar store (Three for a dollar!)
-used ziplock baggie (This is a nice recycled surface for drying the glitterized items.)
-reused paper towel (I washed my hands earlier and dried them on this paper towel, but it wasn't really dirty, so I just reused it for a paintbrush bed.)
-plastic fork (left over from Chinese takeout)
-glitter! (I got this on sale at Michael's for $1! You can also find glitter at the dollar store all the time.)

2. Glitter mix time! I just dumped some glitter in the butter tub--probably about a teaspoon worth.

Then, I added some Mod Podge--about two forkfuls.

Since the fork doesn't really scoop, this probably equalled about a quarter of a teaspoon full. Then, I mixed it up with the fork! The glitter mix has about the consistency of wet sand.

3. Glitterize! I scooped a couple of forkfuls of glitter mix onto the bow, then I used the paintbrush to spread it around. I had originally planned to just do one layer of glitter then let that dry then do more layers later.

But when I started glooping the glitter onto the bow, it made more sense to just kind of pat it out with the paint brush. I also made sure I patted it out around the edges. I went for a textured look, not worrying about making it flat and smooth, and I think it turned out quite nice.

4. This was the worst part. I had to wait for everything to dry.

Ugh! Waiting! Thank goodness I have a cute kitty to keep me entertained!

Total money spent: $2
Total time spent: approximately half of a commercial-free episode of Dog the Bounty Hunter (not including the waiting time)
Total happiness level: SUPER DUPER!!!

Special thank yous to Charlie, my entertaining cat and Ashley, my beautiful hair model!