another beading post...

I have a small container of green beads which were a gift. When at the bead shop recently I spotted a nice hand made silver bead with green swirls. I had planned on using it as a feature bead with the other green beads.

Daughter 1 had other ideas.

She wanted it as a feature bead.

Just on its own on a chain.

It just so happened that I had a recently discarded 60cm long snake chain and she decided that it would be perfect on a chain around her neck.

 Hubby is telling me that I have gone soft.

I hope the bead store has a few more of the handmade beads, I liked its colours and uneven pattern/texture.

The tape measure in the pic above isn't just any old tape measure...

It's my new ducky tape measure that was in my christmas stocking. It is quite a success. I need it regularly when beading and I keep misplacing my tape measures (under all the bits and bobs on the beading table) This little fellow is easy to locate and gives me a smile each time I reach for him.

Yes it is a 'him'.  I don't know why, it just is.  OK?

Nail Art Newbies

Teen 2 has been developing an interest in nail art. I have long enjoyed pained nails and have been joining her in the adventures on nail art.

We are both complete beginners in the world of nail art. There are hundreds of nail art blogs out there in the blogosphere - who knew?

Our efforts are not worthy of a dedicated blog but I will show off our beginner efforts and hopefully we will see progress over time. Believe me the only way is UP.

 taped mani with glitter top coat

 vertical taped mani - tape cut with fancy scissors

 more fun taped mani

 last week of school for teen 2 - end of grade 12

 grey/silver free-hand french mani

 silver crackle over navy blue - I wasn't very happy with how the blue chipped so fast and the silver crackle was a good save.

 My Christmas mani. red striped on white base. I spent ages getting in neat and then when I did the disco ball top coat it made some of it run pink.

black/green striped mani with disco ball top coat. The disco ball really picked up the light so you could barely see the pattern in the pics.

red with nail french and silver border. You can see that I broke my pinky nail and it is growing back - it was one of those low, painful breaks.

We are improving in our nail art and from time to time I will feature our efforts.

Dee-stashing Joys

I needed ONE fresh water pearl for an embroidery project some time ago. In order to get just one pearl I had to buy an entire bag of fresh water pearls.

So begins the inadvertant creation of a stash of such items and the enemy of those of us committed to keeping clutter at bay.  I could really get going on this topic.... I shall spare you the drama.

Last Saturday night our married daughter and her hubby dropped in to visit. I was making some jewellery at the time and she sat down beside me to play with all the goodies. She asked if I would make something for her. I showed her the ear ring posts I had bought with her in mind some time ago. That got her excited.

When she saw the pile of fresh water pearls in one box it was instant love.  I made several suggestions and told her to feel free to use them all up as they were left overs and handed her the bead board to play. Meanwhile I got to and made her a simple pair of ear rings to her specifications. She decided that a simple matching necklace with pearls and clear seed beads was what she wanted.

Today I have finally got to stringing it for her.

It really looks sweet and dainty. I can't wait to see her reaction. The seed beads sparkle and set off the natural roughness of the fresh water pearls.

I am not into pearls, but I could even see myself wearing this one.  And I have no more pearls to use up - oh joy.

BFF Transformation

The other day on a trip to the chemist I walked past a costume jewellery chain store. Remembering that teen 2 was on the hunt for strong clips that won't slide out of her silky, smooth hair I stopped in to see what they offered.
My eyes fell on the corner of mark down with the big sign reading 6 for $10. Well that was too good to pass up. The first thing I spotted was this BFF necklace set. It was just the thing I needed for my next project. A quick scan of the ear rings netted a cute pair of pencils and a band for teen 2. Teen 3 was with me and I offered her any 3 items from that section. Oh the delight she had in choosing.

 This is my before pic.  Two snake chains for $2 and the bonus of the cute hearts. 

 Here is what I did with one of the chains. I had a 60cm snake chain with this bell pendant on it (gift from oldest daughter's honey moon in Bali) and it was too long, so I swapped it over to the 50cm chain. Much better.

Then I started to play with the hearts. I pulled some purple faceted glass beads out of my stash and made these sweet, simple ear rings with a bit of colour and a bit of bling.

Oh and for the other bits teen 3 chose some hair clips, a feathered alice band and a flower alice band. Easy cheap happy. And I found the clips teen 2 was wanting.

Last First Day

Teen 3 started back at school this week.

When she was nearly ready to walk out the door I came into her room with the camera. She groaned and said, "Really? You really want to take my picture?"

Ignoring the sarcasm, my smile and enthusiastic nodding must have won her over because her next comment was, "Ok as long as you do it right here, right now AND I wear my sunnies."

Deal done.  Ya gotta take whats ya can gets sometimes - so no nice posed pics.
Photo snapped (fast I might add lest she change her mind).
Teen 3 plants a kiss on my cheek and skips out the door of her bedroom happy in her victory and off for her first day of her last year of high school.
I am left smiling too 'cause it is a win-win scenario; last year she wouldn't let me take her pic at all.

The photo does tell it all really.

Long gone are the days when she would be happy for me to take photos of her and would proudly show off her new uniform or school bag or lunch box...

It really is the end of an era. After 17 years of first days at school this is my last one.
I'm not sure how I feel about that yet; part glad, part sad.

How Charming

Teen 3 loves red and black. She requested a charm bracelet in red, black and silver. I had some red beads and started to wire them up.
I thought I didn't have enough so visited a nearby bead store ...  a.k.a. lolly shop for beaders
... and no calories either.

This was a dangerous move as I went from too few to too many in the blink of an eye.

The result was a pretty charm bracelet, a happy teen ....

and a big pile of left over wired beads! 

Teen 3 happily informed me that she wouldn't mind a bag hanger too now.

As it turned out I did have enough beads for the bracelet and didn't need to buy any extras.

The irony is that I was trying to use up my bead stash with the intention of only buying beads for specific projects as I needed them.

Bag Hangers

Still Beading.  :)

Some years ago I started to make charm bracelets for all three teens.  I got no further than selecting some beads and wiring a few of them ready for the next step.  Colour  preferences and tastes have changed. Now, what to do with the selected beads?  That is still a work in progress.

So far though I have made some bead hangers for hand bags or jeans or where ever one wants to hang them.

 I got a bit carried away with the green beads.  Eldest daughter still loves green and is frog mad. She visited last night and saw it. She immediately clipped it onto her jeans and did her happy dance. So it has now gone home with her.

So much for my idea of putting it aside for next Christmas.

 This cutie doesn't have a destination yet.

When I started wiring these, teen 3 was orange mad. She no longer wants orange but it is the IT colour this season so may find a suitable recipient at some stage.  I continued wiring it and assembled it. I am happy with the result. What do you think?

Ear Ring Rescue

I am now feeling the mojo.
It's time to take a look at my existing ear rings and identify the ones I don't wear, evaluate why I don't wear them and see what I can do about it.

I pulled three pairs out to start.

I didn't take any before pics. The aren't hugely different as it was minor changes which make a big difference to the functioning of each ear ring.

Here is the after pic.

The red star ear ring on the left originally was on 2 strands of tiger tail and was crimped at the top just above and below the fish hook wire. This meant that it didn't hang straight. This crooked hanging bugged me as it would make the crimp at the bottom rub agains my neck and scratch me.  Pain and discomfort ends to be a turn-off for me so it was time for a remodel.
I liked the basic look of the ear ring so switched the tiger tail to a single red strand, threaded the beads again and crimped it at the bottom. I have also now discovered crimp covers and they look like silver balls and cover the sharp edges of the crimps.  I decided to not crimp again above the star as I like the loopy look. It made it a bit trickier to get the two different sized beads on the ends but was worth it.
The ear rings were originally a gift to have Christmas themed ear rings that weren't tacky as at the time I was attending many Christmas functions and was getting tired of my on pair of nice Christmas ear rings.

The second pair were even simpler to fix.
They had a large red shell on the bottom and it dangled and touched my shoulder. I just removed it.

The third one on the right is part of a set with a matching necklace featuring a lager disk like the smaller disks.  another friend gave them to me for my birthday last year. I have worn the necklace a bit but have had trouble with the matching ear rings. I was thinking of re-homing the entire set. The ear rings were on cheap brass hooks which my ear don't like and the bit where it hangs was too thick to swing freely from the hook.
I replaced the hook and made a joining part using a left over small coral bead and double loops. A simple fix which greatly improves the look and function of these ear rings too.

Now I have gained 3 more wearable ear rings that I won't skip over. And I didn't need to get rid of them either.

Lariet 1,2, and not 3

I still have lots of beads and feel like I am getting the mojo going, so will keep rolling with it while it lasts... wonder where it will go?

Anyways.
One big container full of blue glass beads begging to be turned into something...

The result this Lariet with the second big blue triangle bead as the feature. I can see myself wearing it over a plain black top. It is quite heavy with all those large beads but every one who has seen it decorating my lounge room has admired it, and tried it on too. ;)

I have a set of red coral beads that were a gift. Red is always good for me. The challenge is the red coral is often a slightly orange or pink shade and can be tricky as doesn't alway work with a more pure red shade. I tend to lean more towards the pure red or blue-red than the orange-red. mmmm tricky.

I played with lots of options and ended up string and re-stringing the red coral three times before I was happy with the effect. I was trying to make one necklace featuring the flat disk but it just wasn't working. I also made good use of my bead board in deciding what to do.

In the end I came up with two different coral necklaces. The best part is that they can be worn together or separately depending on the outfit and my mood at the time.

I forgot to rotate this pic before uploading.

The round coral beads in the second necklace are the same size as the single round coral bead used as the feature bead in the longer Lariet necklace.

The pics don't show all the colour variations and just how lovely the coral is.
I used some shaped coral, some tumbled coral, glass beads, bugle and seed beads all in a monochrome as other colours just didn't work.

ohh and teen three came in when I was most of the way through, LIKED it and offered to relieve me of the burden of the necklaces.  I take this as the ultimate compliment as any one who knows the nature of 16 year old teen girls can testify.

Suncatcher Updated

On one occasion when my children were little and we were visiting my parents, my dad pulled out his Pagodas that he made out of old television glass to show the girls. They were fascinated. He showed them some that he had hung on chains with a few beads for interest. Naturally the girls wanted one each.

Granddad let the girls choose and the eldest two each chose one. Nana pulled out some plastic beads and necklace chain. I spent a happy hour with the girls selecting beads and threading them and then joined it all up to make two sun catchers.

These sun catchers have hung in the kitchen of every house we have lived in for the past 15 or so years.  Fast forward to the present and the sun catchers were really showing their age. The chains were rusty and the plastic beads grimy.  Definitely no sun catching or sparkling happening.

I asked the two youngest teens if they would like to play with the beads and re-do the sun catchers? Both girls took up the option and spent a happy hour threading beads on wires and again I assembled them with new chain and fittings.  This time all of the beads are glass, some faceted.

 The dark chains are from the old ones with the new ones now sporting the glass beads and ends.

 close up

The girls kept going and made more beaded sets so I added new bottom dangles and now we have four beaded hangers.

 No prizes for guessing one daughter's fav colour.

I used a large glass triangle bead for one and revamped a pair of pretty but unsuccessful faceted glass ear rings for the other. The ear rings had been done on tiger tail with crimps on the ends.  Fail, because all the sharp little crimp edges aren't pleasant bumping against sensitive neck skin. 

Showing the entire length of the four new and two old bead hangers. sorry it's a bit blurry but it is the only pic I have showing them fully.

This is the view from our kitchen window across the back yard. Yep it is a hug yard with a hills hoist style clothes line, huge double shed and even bigger Mango tree now full of fruit.  After this pic I threw out the old, rusty bead hangers.

Oh and they do sparkle in the afternoon sun. :)

Moving On

I have missed blogging and was not sure how to proceed.

I have a little blog primarily about my dee-cluttering experiences... then I got to a point where I was mostly clutter-free. I know that sounds incredible, almost impossible. It's true.

The biggest aspect was when my hoarder hubby finally made the connection that his life was better when there was less clutter. He slips back into his old ways occasionally and we had had a few interesting discussions / debates over certain items, but for the most part he now prefers our less cluttered life style.

As I have noted we have moved house a lot. Each move we have dee-cluttered as well as each change of season.  I still have a box where I put any items not needed and regularly re-home bits. the difference is that it feels under control.

I wish I could say the same for all of my life... but that is a whole other story.

My solution from here is that I will keep my blog and will get back to regular blogging.
I will switch the focus to the tales of my life and document all the details that catch my attention.

It feels like a positive step and a progression for me.