To Bead or Not to Bead

Back in the day, before I became a "Scrapper", I was a "beader." It all started with those power bead bracelets. Remember those? Well, when they first came out way, way back when, they were about $25. There was NO way I was paying that much for them because I just knew that I could make them for so much cheaper. What a mistake that was...... It was the start of my first crafting obsession.

Like all of these things seem to do, it started small. Just a handful of crystals and some elastic thread. Then a few silver colored beads.

Shit.

Somehow over the course of many years, that turned in to at LEAST a gross of every single damn color of Swarovski crystal in every size and shape. Silver colored became ONLY sterling silver, preferably hand made by artisans in Bali.

Don't even get me started about how I started buying actual stones. Tourmaline, pearls, garnets, turquoise, oh my!

On the plus side, it is SO much easier to hoard beads. Those suckers are small and easily hidden.

Cost wise, well, hell. Let's just say, I could be driving a Volvo.

Thankfully, I have never pined for one. Besides, there is no way I could park it in the cabinets under my bar (hey, I take space where ever I can find it.....) and while it might be a feat of Swedish engineering, they are just a bit too suburban for me. No sparkle.

This on the other hand.........

I might happily be able to trade in all my supplies; paper, metal, crystal and vintage alike for the chance to roll up to the Waffle House in this bitch.

I wandered off again, didn't I?

My awesome pal Pete hosted a recent Halloween swap that included making a piece of Steampunk inspired jewelry. In addition to being full of some awesome paper crafts, it made me go back and fall in love with my beady friends all over again.

To get back in the groove, I started going back through my stash and pulling out some of the things I had made in the past.

I have a deep love for all thing Swarovski. Add Bali sterling silver and *sigh*...

This was a quick little one to put together, but it probably got the most wear. I find the faceted fresh water pearls just lovely and these daisy spacers are like the Bazzil card stock for the beading set.

I had a love of all things Sundance catalog and did my best to copy a many of their styles. Besides, it has a monkey. Everything is more awesome when a monkey is involved.

This was actually one of the last bracelets that I made. It was after I had started hoarding paper products in lieu of beads, but I busted them out for one last grand huzzah about 2 years back.

This was very simple, but I still love, love, love these micro-mini seed beads.

More Sundance style, with turquoise, sunstone, amazonite and silver.

On to the swap.

I decided that this needed a bit more chain and wire work to go along with the theme. I picked a bronzed metal along with purple German glass beads, both new and vintage. There is a little carved skull bead. I can't for the life of me remember where I got him, but looking back, I wish I had bought more than one. What the hell was I thinking? Since when do I have one of anything??!?! I had an awesome partner, though, and was glad to let him go to a new owner.

To keep a bit with the scrappy theme, I used a Making Memories garment pin to attach the skull dangling charm. In addition to feeling clever, I also thought that it would make the necklace more adaptable and give my pal a few different ways to wear it if she so desires.

Here is the necklace as just a solo piece. It is about 20' long, without the charms. I guess she could also triple wrap it as a bracelet, depending on the size of her wrist.

Finally, I made another set of charms without the Halloween theme.

I had a great time revisiting my old hobby. It made me want to start creating again.

Oh if only I actually wore jewelry.

Meh.....who cares?

I have decided that I aspire to being creative, not productive. I mean I call myself a scrapper while I have yet to complete a single scrapbook. Nope. Not one freaking scrapbook. I have about 10 pages. That counts as a start, right?