I love the layered look of multi strand necklaces. This one has four separate strands all joined together. One strand is all beads the same size and another is continuous beads with three small and then one large. The other two strands are links with beads on each link, one is small uneven stone and the other has a mix of all sorts. Each strand needs to be a slightly different length so they sit nicely, play around with the lengths before finishing to make sure they look how you like.
The occasion was my sisters 50th and a few yummy cocktails were likely. So for part of my gift I decided on painting some cocktail glasses. A new craft for me, and I did find purchasing the paint a little expensive but they will paint a lot of glass. This is really easy and lots of fun. So easy that I ended up painting 6 glasses when I intended on only painting two. Basically clean the glasses, paint, then bake when dry – instructions will be on any glass paints you buy.
I will be painting many wine glasses as a gift with a bottle of wine. This would also be great for kids party gifts, paint a glass with the childs name and fill with goodies for a special take home treat.
Their was some slight need for dressing up, so I went all out. We were going as the owl and the pussycat. We had a huge pea green boat that we walked in and carried, the cat costume was fairly standard, cat mask, tail and fur cuffs for my wrist and ankles. But the owl mask and cape was magic. The mask was built around a plastic mask with papier mache and then painted. The cape is just felt with marker pen – easy, no hemming needed.
I love shopping with my sister. We go to different shops that I would never go to on my own, and come across really funky things. One trip a necklace caught our eye – very cool button choker.
We ooed and ahhed over a number of different colour versions – they really were fantastic – and expensive. We whispered to each other that we could make that – as you do. But this time I did, I could only find suitable buttons in black and white in my collection – but they worked fine. Finding the right buttons would be the trick as a number of big buttons are needed.
So I found some buttons, and fortunately I already had lots of beads so had eveything needed. The necklace is made with two pieces of wire/tiger tail. Both threads go through the small beads together, one of the threads branches up and through the button stack and back down to join the other thread going through the small beads.
I always remember the notes in my childhood recipe book, reassuring that your first pancake often fails and it is OK to throw it out. I think I was happy with my first pancake – it was sweet, stodgy and buttery – perfect, but the first attempt failure is a common thing. I expected it with my first beaded necklace, and unfortunately I was right. It was too contrived and balanced and ’colour by numbers’ looking. But I had learnt the skills I needed in the process and studied how the necklaces I loved were designed, and tried again and made the green necklace pictured. So although not terribly original it works!
