Thing-a-day.com

So I neglected to post the last few days but I’ve been busy making things despite that!

The bookmarks I prototyped earlier in the month are done now, and flying east:

My daughters bridge project for her grade 3/4 class:

And a tool to use to make more even cuts in my clay bead making. The spaces between the blades can be widened to make tube beads instead of heishi beads (which they are set for now) and it will make precise sized cuts!

So close to the end. I am knitting a shrug which is a little bigger project and will probably take me a couple more days. I was hoping to have it done to show as a “thing of the day” but don’t think I will make it in time. Today I made some earrings. I have a few loose larger beads that are “left overs” from other projects, so I am working them into earrings.

I think I was looking at Craft’s blog when I stumbled upon a great tutorial on how to make beads from recycled newspaper. Today I decided to give that tutorial a try and I’m partially through the process. The beads take several days to dry so it’ll be a while before I can paint them, hopefully by the 29th! Yikes! Anyway, I boiled the water with the newspapers inside and waited for about an hour and then rolled the beads, which took about twenty minutes or so.

While I waited I made some more shrinky dinks:

a black cat with big yellow eyes (in honor of my ever-so-curious feline companion Phoebe who modeled for me), an owl and a friendly heart.

Another glass pendant with matching earrings. I should have taken a photo from another angle, because the piece I used is slag glass and it looks almost like malachite. Faith and begorra! Wouldn’t that be a fine thing to be wearin’ on St. Paddy’s Day?

I started a memory wire bracelet yesterday. These things are so darned hard to photograph. (If you want to see what a finished one looks like, go back to my second post.) I string a base course of crow or tile beads onto the memory wire and then bead over top of that.

Today… more beads. Here’s a pic of just a few of them, fresh out of the oven and ice bath:

I was happy with how plump the pillow beads look - I sometimes get the flattest pillow beads. And the swirlies are kind of neat done this way, as discs. Much easier to drill holes in, too.

I sewed 40 beads to the top of this vase I made.

I love jewelry, but I am so NOT a ring person. I wear them, but I always wear the same ones. My sister Liz is the exact opposite. She collects beautiful and unusual rings, often as mementos of her travels, and she frequently changes the ones she wears. Her hands were made for rings.

The last time I ordered supplies, I ordered, on a whim, some ring findings. I liked these because they looked like they’d accommodate peyote stitch.

So tonight I finally experimented with one. Here’s the result. (A hand model I am not. I have hideous hands, with my crooked fingers, big lumpy knuckles, and gnawed nails. Hmmmm. “Could your feelings about your hands be the reason you’re not a ring person?” asks the psychotherapist. “Well, like, DUH!” says I.)

The ring’s a lot cooler IRL than in the photos.

I think the relief of ‘FRIDAY!’ is residual from my own days at school and work. Saturdays aren’t that much of a change around here, The Baby will still make me get up much earlier than I’d like, but at least the pressure of getting the First Grader off to school on time properly clothed, fed and presentable will be alleviated. We can sit around in our jammies and pick our toes all day if we so desire, although I admit we have yet to spend a day quite like that.

Anyway, I had to grab the morning nap to hurriedly throw together a ‘thing’ for today. It’s a simple stranded bracelet with some super cheap blue glass beads I got off ebay a few years ago. The brownish ones are Czech fire polished rounds with a blue coating that you can’t see very well. But occasionally it hits the light just so and you see a nice dark almost metallic blue. I bought these 2 Christmases ago for a project and this month I’ve used up most of the left overs. They are quickly becoming one of my favorite versatile beads.

I painted the rest of the beads, used a brush. So they’re cute:

And to help with pics I made a poor woman’s light box out of cardboard and tissue and my hot like the sun desk lamp. The resulting pics still needed photoshopping but were much more consistent and less shadowy than others i’ve taken. I’m told the ambient brightness in the room made my pics too dark (so now the correction washes it out) and that i should take the pics in a darker room so that the light of the lightbox actually LIGHTENS the pic. Stay tuned.

Day 21 - another necklace, this time in blues and greens.

I started painting the little lentils from yesterday. The ‘paint’ is actually coloured liquid clay and these are the 3 larger lentils as try outs. The smaller ones are for a project and I will use a paintbrush instead of a toothpick so they look less like scrambled eggs.

And because I was productive today, I made two more canes, a blue flower and a blue rose.

I got a little mini tripod for my digital camera today. I could kick myself for not doing that years ago. Made the low light / bumped up white / macro pics much simpler!

Day 20 already - only nine more ‘things’ to do!

Today I was itching to make something with all the old and new beads I’ve acquired from eBay recently. I’ve long fancied a chunky, asymmetric, totally random necklace featuring uniquely different beads. So, I had a go, and this is the result.

It’s threaded on elasticated cord - haven’t quite yet worked out how best to secure/fasten it. But, apart from that, I’m really happy with it.

I made the blank beads to paint tomorrow. Some little candy coloured lentils. The colours are actually alcohol inks added to a translucent clay. My daughter tells me they look like candies in the same sweet treats theme I did last week.

So, yesterday was pretty much a bust. I was exhausted. But today I restrung a necklace that belongs to my mother-in-law. Last time she was babysitting my little monster, she broke it and sent beads flying everywhere.

Now it’s back together, and wearable once again. Fun, fast, easy. Thanks, I needed that!

I never would have made it as a frontiersman, or woman. This day to day stuff is kicking my butt! However, I was determined to make a Thing for today. Not sure if I should have taken on this endeavor, I have a feeling that I would have been better off photographing my loaf of bread, or cereal bars that I cooked. But noooooo…that just wasn’t good enough for me. So in my deliriously tired state, I threw together something. Call it a ‘collaboration on Spring’ or ’simple desperation’.

Earrings, again. I wanted to put some pastel beads with these leaves to evoke thoughts of budding flowers. But after I threaded and looped the pink beads on silver pins, I realized I didn’t have the proper size silver rings to hook the leaves. I was too tired to attempt making my own loops, or using eyepins, so I said screw it, I’ll combine metals. So the chain was switched out to the brass, using brass jump rings, along with the silver pins in the pink beads and silver ear wires. I could have saved the pink dangles and remade a set using brass pins, but alas…I didn’t think of until just now, and if I had done so, how would the transition to silver earwires work? I only have silver….Anyway, I’ll just keep rambling if I don’t shut up now…

It’s obviously too dark for my clothesline photography, so I used a mirror to further complicate things

I DID get a cute photo of my boys today

This is a set made with beautiful faceted glass beads and swarovski crystals. These were the last of my faceted amethyst drop beads. Seems like everything runs out when you don’t have any money. It took me a while to make these since I hurt my wrist sometime yesterday. Not sure what I did to it but it’s been difficult doing what I normally do without any pain.

Maybe this should count as my 18th day… no, actually, I did this yesterday and managed to finish it in one day so…

This is a scarf for someone special. It is a shorter style that you wrap from the front to behind the neck and bring around again (as shown) and is held closed with a button through the crochet. Unfortunately, due to my shoddy camera, you cannot properly make out how pretty the colors are. It is creme with a mixed pink edging and fringe. The button is a pink plastic button from my grandmother’s sewing kit, and I used silver beads on the fringe for a little fun.

I finally baked a few of my rose attempts. And in a bit of a clean up I used the last few slices of an old kaleidoscope cane on a bead. Yay beads!

Another beadwoven bracelet. I started this actually about 2 days ago. The previous bracelet that I was working in is practically done. The only thing left for my previous bracelet is to buy the tube bar clasp to finish it off and get the correct size. So there wasn’t anything else I could do with that once and started this one. I had actually started a bracelet with these beads a few weeks ago but the tension was nice right and it looked horrible. Now I’ll be done with this one in a few days and all will be left is the clasp again. I have to wait to get money before I can buy the clasps for these bracelets.

When I bought these beads I thought they were a whole different color. I’m slowly getting used to the dark bronze purple iris colored beads. I really wanted a warm reddish golden bronze color.

I sewed a piece of knitted scrap into a flower-ring shape, added needlefelted details, some delicata and bugle beads, needle felted a stem and then a flower pod/bud, against adding further details by needlefelting, then sewed a pin back on.  The camera doesn’t capture the dew-like sparkle of the many clear beads on the flower.  The entire process took about three hours, start to finish, but that was using a piece of pre-knitted scrap I had in the box.  I’m fast, but not THAT fast.

Here’s the back - see the gold pinback in the center of the flower?

And another angle, showing the overall composition

 So whadd’ya think?  I enjoyed myself, so of course it was worth the time and effort involved.