Title: Family circle
Description: Mixed metals charm bracelet with three couples–representing my parents and grandparents–and in the center is my heart
Inspiration: Today is Family Day in Ontario
Here is my thing for today! I’ve been wanting to put little jump rings on these charms I bought, becuase the ring that was on it already was to small for a necklace to fit through. The other thing I did was make a pair of earrings out of vintage pale pink buttons, and they are ADORABLE! I will sell them on etsy so a lucky someone can look extremely cute! ;-) 
- tracy
So here’s the deal… I had this idea for a gift, due on my buddy’s Jan 20 birthday. Yeah, I know, I’m a tad late. She and I have a pact, though, and she’s cool with my tardy behaviour.
Anyway. The pressie is a book cover that she needs for a much-read and beloved book. Her husband secretly sent me the book’s dimensions, then I rummaged through my painfully huge fabric stash, and finally I cut out the pieces I would need to assemble the thing. Of course at this point, creeping elegance entered the story. Which trim to use? Should I line it? What about embellishments? *sigh* So many choices, but I finally (no such word in my vocabulary when it comes to projects) settled on a basic set of stuff to use. Well, okay, so I had definitely chosen a colour set. I began assembly, and then everything went haywire. Next thing I knew, her birthday was gone and I was tearing out the stitching on this miserable thing for the 3rd time! GRRRRRR! Sometimes you just have to back away from a bad situation, and this I did, in spades. Only yesterday (after a call from that friend asking “You haven’t finished it yet, HAVE you!?!”) did I finally muster the focus to pull the bits and pieces out and start anew. This time I only had to tear the beast asunder twice before figuring out an entirely different approach to the design. So this morning I faced an ALmost complete book cover with the anticipation I could finish by supper. WRONG! I dove down a rathole this morning and ended up creating a beautiful little end piece for what WILL be an attached bookmark. I am quite pleased with this piece and how it works with the rest of the cover.
Bead materials are brass spacers throughout, papier mache’, African wood diverter, square wood - painted gold, goldstone, faceted peridot, picasso jasper, red coral, a mother of pearl and a abalone carved bird fetish, and finally a couple of brass leaf beads.
I made these wine charms (you know, for identifying your wine glass at a party) outta Shrinky-dink material and wire loops.
I made a necklace with some beads and charms I bought and some from a necklace my son had that broke. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.
My camera battery died, so I’ll post pics tomorrow for this and yesterday’s Temari ball. It actually looked better in the morning than it had when I was working on it late last night!
This project came to me at a dinner party the other night when the mention of wine glass charms came up as the hostess picked up one glass after another asking “is this mine?” I only had time to make one today, but hey, there are 27 more days left! 