Green rondelle necklace

When I bought these green rondelles, I had no idea what to do with them.  My mother talked me into using them to create a necklace for this large lampwork pendant.

It's mostly stringing, but the bail is done in ladder stitch.

Murano glass heart

As soon as I saw this glass pendant for sale online, I knew I had to have it. Here it is, on a necklace of glass seed beads and Tibetan silver filigree beads.

Doublewide purple tennis bracelet

I  don't know what to say about this bracelet.  It started out with green crystal rondelles.  Don't ask me how it ended up with purple bicones and red accent beads.  It will look nice with a red hat, I'm sure.

Patriotic necklace

I have been wanting to make a necklace in patriotic colors for a while, and I just realized that I had the beads I needed to do it.

I started out just making a bracelet, but I liked it so much, I decided to extend it.  The base is a 2-needle right angle weave done with silver-lined E beads.  After that I wove a diagonal string of blue seed beads and red E beads, then decided to weave it on the back too.  The diagonals on the front and back ran toghter, and making it look like I wound a spiral around the base.  I might have to do this again, using just red seed beads over the silver base, as a candy cane look for Christmas.

Box Cards

After making the pouch in my last post, I thought about other ways to send small gifts in the mail, and remembered that there was a box card that I wanted to try.  It uses a whole 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of paper, so I wanted to test and make sure I understood the folds before using a paper that I liked.  I grabbed one of the more atrocious papers in my collection, a sheet from and old Michaels Slab (remember those?) and went to work.

A striped paper was probably not the best choice, but the results were good enough that I chose to complete the project into something I could use.  This would be good for mailing inchies or an ATC, or maybe even another bracelet.

I did wonder about the dimensions - could I alter the size?  I ripped a page from an old Vogue magazine (thanks, Mom) and trimmed it down to a 9 x 6 rectangle, and made all the folds at 1.5 inch intervals.

This ended up being 3 x 3 inches, a very usable size for me, and not bad looking, either, if you don't mind the closeup of Jessica Alba's face on the back.  This is how cheap I am - I would rip a page from a magazine rather than waste a sheet of Slab paper.

The sum of the parts (not great)

I worked on my bugle bead necklace some more last night, and finally figured out how to attach all the pieces.

After I got everything attached and tried it on, I immediately saw the things I wanted to change, the main thing being that the fringe is way too short.  I think I will retry this piece, and see if I can make it look like the beaded ball is a slide.

I like showing you my misses as much as my hits - it's like letting to peek into my brain.  I hope it isn't too scary!

Inspired

Last week I went to a TAC open house, and we did a couple of Make-n-Takes, in addition to grousing about price hikes and whatnot (can't have a new catalog without complaining about price hikes! except last year, they thwarted me by dropping the prices.  Now they are back up again).  Chris always designs nice things, but I really didn't see the point of making a little cardstock pouch - what was I going to do with it?  Cheryl looked over at me and said, "Juliet, you could put one of your bracelets in it!".  (Cheryl is so smart!)

It was a brilliant idea!  I had a bracelet that I needed to mail out, so when I got home, I made this:

It is a little thank you gifty for a wonderful friend who sent me these Martha Stewart punches that she didn't want (I can't even say those words without stuttering - "Martha Stewart punches I don't want" - nope, just can't do it) among a LOT of other things, including the heart-shaped button on the bracelet, and the embossing powder on the word (you can't tell it from the scan, but it is a clear powder with an interference finish - Diane sent me a bunch of these, and they are so fun to use!)

I hope she doesn't like the pouch TOO much - she might want her punches back!