In September 2016 I made a braided horse hair bracelet for a friend with tail hairs from her three horses.
There are other jewelry makers that glue the ends into metal caps. I don’t trust glue to hold, so prefer to pair glue with a mechanical join as well, in this case crimping down a wire wrap on the ends of the braids. When I do this again, I will do a different clasp, because the clip is difficult to get on, but easy to accidentally pop open.
I wanted a pair of star earrings to wear to chorus events. I started looking at preassembled sets and was dismayed at materials and pricing, so I ordered parts from Fire Mountain Gems and assembled them myself. Since buying in bulk makes the individual item less expensive, I ordered enough for my whole chorus.
I picked a simple star charm and an open loop ear wire so assembly was a just matter of using needle nose pliers to open the wire loop, put in the charm, and close the loop again. Here is a tip for opening wire loops, either on ear wires or for jump rings: twist, don’t pull. Rather than pulling the ends of the loop apart and widening the loop, if you twist them, one side forward, one side back, they are much easier to twist back closed.
The thing that took the longest time was getting the cards with earrings into the little 2×3” bag. The sets, with shipping, cost less than $1 per pair plus time. The components are silver-plated, which is fine for costume jewelry. The assembly is simple enough that if someone does have a nickel allergy, the charm can easily be transferred to a pair of titanium or niobium ear wires instead. (Those are just considerably more expensive.)
I like using combs to hold my hair back from my face. I tried finding some that had a little bling for chorus performances, but was only finding the kind for weddings and formal updos, where the tines stick into the hair, but need pins or other methods to stay put. So I sparkled up my own pair using Loctite super glue and flat backed AB rhinestones. (AB stands for aura borealis, a coating put on beads to give them a color shifting shine.)
I used a little too much superglue for regular applications of rhinestones, but it turned out OK for the combs because it filled in the spaces between the jewels so hairs don’t get caught in the sparkle.
This is a wrap bracelet that I made for my sister in April of 2015. It is made from red leather cord, 4mm garnet and quartz beads, and beading thread. The remarkable thing about it is that it was sitting next to my chair next to the fireplace when the house caught on fire in March of 2015. I had been working on it and it was in a project bag. I needed to give everything a rinse to get rid of the ash, but I was able to complete the bracelet.
I really missed an opportunity to do a morse code message in the beading.
Back in December of 2014 I decided to combine crochet and jewelry making to create a light weight but bold necklace with pearlized cotton in shades of purple.
In 2014 I really had started to embrace taking pictures of my creations. I even took a picture of the CD case I repurposed into a guess-thwarting jewelry box.
I’m pretty sure since this is purple it went to my Mom. I’ve done more crocheted jewelry since. It is much lighter than traditional bold jewelry pieces, but does have to be laundered, starched, and laid flat to dry on occasion. I can personally tolerate a crocheted necklace for a little longer, if it isn’t too tight.
Critters and Craft 