Baubles, Bangles and Beads.....

I think that I have most of the decorations back in their boxes, finally. Between that and cooking and other cleaning, I had a full day's work by 1:00PM.

Things were very quiet around here today. Tessie and Zar were nowhere to be seen while I was working. They seem to have a knack for disappearing when I am doing something that seems anything like work to them.

After Walter got home from golf and we finished lunch, I went searching. I never did find Zar. I suspect that he sneaked off to the bathtub to work in his cottage. It will be out of there soon, but he is not happy, not being able to carry on his experiments.

I remembered that I had left a tray of beads in the bedroom, where I last worked on mini jewelry. I found Tessie sorting mini beads and selecting some that she liked.

There she was. Not in her usual lamp lounge. She was sprawled out in the bead tray. She was impossibly tangled in the beads and totally discombobulated!

I pulled back and took another photo so that you could see the mess that she made. She had about half of the mini mini beads scattered on the tray. I am probably going to be picking beads out of the sheets for days. Oh well. They need washing anyway.

She proceeded to sweet talk me into making her a turquoise necklace, earrings, bracelet and ring. "I absolutely must have everything matching.", she declared. When she is in this kind of mood, it is much easier to spend a half hour stringing beads than spending three hours trying to talk her out of it.

You saw the method for making the necklace and the earrings the other day, so I won't repeat that. I did however, make her a ring and bracelet to match. I will give you a short tutorial on those.

The bracelet was on one strand of wire. I started with the loop end this time. I twisted a loop in one end and then started threading beads. The first three or four were threaded on both wire ends. Then I cut one end off and simply kept threading on the longer wire until I had enough and a little more to fit around her wrist. I then made a loop in that end of the wire and threaded the end back through a few beads and cut it off. I scrunched the loop together and formed it into a hook....Bracelet finished, just like that!

The ring was even simpler. I threaded 3 beads on the wire. I twisted it into a loop and made sure it fit. I bent the wire to the backside of the ring and cut it short. Then I bent it to follow the curvature of the wire and cut the tails off. Theoretically, no one will ever see the underside of the ring. If they do, they are just too nosey!

If you look closely, you will see that the necklace is twisted and rope like. I simply twisted it several times before I put it on her neck. BTW, one nice thing about the jewelry made with wire is, it can be "draped" over the edge of a table or be falling out of the jewelry box quite realistically. You just bend it the way you want it before placing it. I do bend the necklace to drape down the front of Tessie's neck.

It is hard to see the earring. I stuck the hook in her hair right by her ear.....No....She wouldn't let me pierce her ears.

She is calling to me from the bead tray. I think she has another bunch of beads picked out for the next set. I am going to try to talk her into non matching. Those are more fun to make.

See you tomorrow.