Of Silk Purses and Sow's Ears.....

Never send a cheap gem show seed bead to do a rocalle's job  and definitely never send a #8 Walmart seed bead to do the job of a genuine crystal accent bead... The results is not at all the same and the trip is torturous....

I have been wanting a crystal chandelier for the craft cottage. I ran across this page of notes when I was cleaning my workroom....Any excuse to stop...This will do.

These directions are some that I copied from a magazine long ago and it's how I first made chandeliers.

How do I know?  I tried Zap a Gap glue just once.  Stuck all of my fingers to the top of my head with it...Never again....Just kidding about the top of my head.  The fingers were stuck to each other.

Actually, the seed beads were a hank that I bought at the gem show....Cheap...

The #8s were from Walmart.  The findings were some that I had on hand.

It doesn't pay to use cheap supplies when you are trying to do precise beading....As in having six arms of a chandelier turn out the same length...

At this point, it doesn't show.  To the left is the top and swags.  To the right is the bottom and the arms.

This is where I started getting into trouble. I finally resorted to putting a larger finding at the bottom.  That helped...Somewhat.

Never say die.  I was determined. So I made allowances by adding extra beads here and subtracting other beads there.

It took me twice or thrice as long as it should have...I was discarding beads with small holes, right and left...That is, they kept bouncing off the work mat, right and left.

I kept asking myself if I really wanted to do this...And kept going.  Anything to keep from cleaning the dreaded workroom...

This was the end result...The photo looks pretty good.  I took a picture and turned the chandelier a fraction of an inch...Took another photo and repeated. All in all, I think that I had about 15 photos at different angles.

Then I choose the photo that was the least offensive...

I will hang it in the craft cottage, at the same angle, as a lesson for what not to waste my time doing...  Until I find my decent beads and I know I have some crystals somewhere....

I told you my workroom needed cleaning again!  Now do you believe me?

See you tomorrow.