Bling Bling - And a OWOH Prize

(These were made by my friend Laura and gifted to me. Her Etsy shop is coming soon!)

I learned something new over the weekend with my girls. First, I learned that I really, really love this color. I already kinda knew that, just look at my blog, but I've come to realize that I'm drawn to it. In Everything.

Second, I learned to make jewelry. I'm using learned in it's loosest sense here. It's not that I didn't have a good teacher, it's just that I'm going to need lots of practice. Lots.



The hardest part, which blew my mind, was putting together the beads. I don't mean the actual execution. I mean the part where you go, 'oh this is pretty. i think i'll put this with this and that with that and this'll go here and that'll go there'. Not as easy as one might think. I mean, I'm a girl. I like jewelry. I like pretty, shinny things. How hard could it be, right? Deceptively.



I made the bracelet, which I was darn proud of! Just look at those colors. I planned to do it all in turquoise but then I saw those crackly beads and they just spoke to me. Something very vintagey about those little do dads. But I could NOT get it together for the earrings. I mean, I just made the bracelet. Now all I gotta do is pick out some pretty little matching beads, right?

It was a disaster. Not because I couldn't get down that little bend/bend/wrap technique for the tops of the earrings (I mean, I couldn't. I let my friend do that. But that's not what I'm talking about here. Pay attention), but because every bead I picked out was too big, didn't "compliment" the other shapes I put them with. Blah, blah, blah. So my friend executes the simple technique of going the 'simple is sometimes best' route and throwing three little turquoise beads together making the perfect little set of earrings. Yes, that made me feel like quite the winner. But then I just don't do simple well. I like to keep things complicated. You know, just for the fun of it.



I figure my lesson in jewelry making couldn't have been more perfectly timed since this little beaut arrived in the mail this week. A lampwork heart bead from Karen Klomparens over at Fire-n-sand Glass. I really like the idea of creating shapes for jewelry from glass with a blowtorch. That's just my kind of complicated. It's also the kind of thing that would get my house burned to the ground so I'm just going to see about making something with the one Karen sent me.



Maybe I'll just keep it simple. You know, like leave it on the little ribbon it came with. Oh, come on. You know that's never going to happen!