Saturday sneak peek: Pretty in Pink

I do most of my projects over the weekend and it often kills me to wait 'till the kids go to bed on Sunday night to get around to posting the tutorials...

Hence, my new Saturday Sneak Peek.

It really is just a peek though... tune in this week for the full view and the tutorial to go along with it.

Friday's Fail: How NOT to wrap a bobble

So I'm not really feeling the "Friday's Fixin' to Do..." So what I'm "Fixin' to Do" this Friday, is change my mind to make Fridays all about Fails.

Welcome to the First Edition of Friday's Fail.

I could make this easy and say what failed was "Friday's Fixin' to Do..."

: )

Let's face it, project don't always go as planned, and if I've learned anything, it is that failure often teaches us the most. 

About a year ago I bought this bracelet, I LOVE LOVE LOVE this bracelet:

Now that I'm experimenting with jewelry, I wanted to try and make my own variation. What I'm not sure if you can see in the photo above, is that the bobbles are actually routed a bit around the edge so that the wire cuts into the bobble just a bit. 

I wasn't up for breaking out the dremel and cutting into glass. That just didn't seem like a beginner project to me. I figured I could wrap the bobbles.

I grabbed some simple dollar store bobbles and some 24 gauge wire... and started wrapping.

That may not look too bad, but if you touched the bobble, it fell out.

Yeah, isn't that attractive.

Yikes!!!

Oh my....

This is getting embarrassing.

No wait. THIS is embarrassing. 

So, I didn't figure out how to wrap bobbles. Yet. What I did learn is that 24 gauge wire is NOT the way to do it. It doesn't have enough strength. 

I have learned how to wrap beads though, more on those next week!

Generally Speaking: Our house lacks history...

Don't get me wrong, I really love our house. But we live in a relatively new town. It's been on the map since 1792, but wasn't really developed until the last 20-40 years. Virtually every single house in the town was built in the last 40 years.

In Northern Virginia if you want a house more than 100 years old you've got to really live in one of this historic areas and pay quite a high price for it.

It hasn't really bothered me, I actually enjoying getting to write the history of our house. I don't have any guilt when it comes to doing things around the house. I'm not damaging any history.

But over the weekend, we visited friends who just purchased a house built in 1908. I didn't snap near enough pictures of but these are just a few of the details that really took my breath away.

The Floors:

Paneling in the foyer.

Eves and window in the 3rd level windows.

I wish you could see the paneling on this door.  

3rd level stairway.

So now I'm on a bit of a quest, to add a bit more history to our house. I'm seeing a lot more visits to antique stores in my future. 

What I've Learned Wednesday: Painting Clothes

My husband LOVES to make fun of me for this - but whenever I paint or work on a particularly messy project - I wear my clothes inside out.

It is easier that keeping track of what are project clothes and what isn't, or risking ruining something that I really like. It doesn't work too well with jeans obviously, but I have 3 favorite pairs of capri sweatpants that I live in on weekends. Pretty much year round. They are perfect. So when I want to work on a project, I just wear them inside out and I never have to worry about ruining them.

More Wine Glass Charms

Since creating the wine glass charms a couple of weeks ago I've had so much fun making more. Trying different techniques, different combinations. I've got so many more ideas, here is a few of the recent sets if finished:

Simple beads:

Wire Wrapped Pearls:

Clear Glass Beads:

If you are interested in checking out a tutorial on these they are based on the same accent bead charm I posted.

Wire Wrapped Stars

During our long drive to NJ this weekend I was able to figure out how to create the wire wrapped stars that have been tumbling around in my mind for a while now. I've got about 4-5 different uses for these stars and just needed to figure them out.

Here is what I thought worked best... (And please forgive the photos - I literally figured this out in the car and then snapped the pictures there too. Our 4 and half trip home, took over 7 hours. I had to keep myself occupied somehow!!!)

Materials:

• Scrap wood
• 5 finish nails - note the top of the nail, the part that you strike, must be as narrow as possible
• 26 gauge wire, color of your choice
• Wire cutters
• Round noise pliers

Step 1 - Nail the nails into the wood in the shape of a pentagon.

Step 2 - Wrap the end of the wire into a loop.

Step 3 - Attach the loop around the nail at the top of the pentagon.

Step 4 - Pull the wire down and to the right so that you wrap the wire around the outside of the nail that is roughly at 5:00 on the board.

Step 5 - Bring the wire up and wrap it around the nail that is at roughly 9:00, more like 9:30...

Step 6 - Bring the wire straight across the pentagon to the nail that is at 2:00ish.

Step 7 - Wrap the wire around and draw it down to the last nail, at roughly 7:00.

Step 8 - Bring the wire back up to the top of the pentagon and wrap the wire down to begin the at step 4 again.

Repeat steps 4-8 twice more so that you've gone around the pentagon a total of 3 times.

You'll note I kept the wire attached to the spool to make it as easy to work with as possible. But now, it is time to cut that spool loose. Pull out about 18" of wire and cut with wire cutters.

Step 9 - Up until now, the placement of the wire on the nail hasn't really matter and you'll see I've got them from the base of the nail all the way up the head:

Now it is time to pull the wires all up as close to the head of the nails as you can get without them popping off.

Step 10 - Keeping the star attached to the nails, take the free end of the wire and begin wrapping it around the joints of the star moving clockwise around the star. Make sure you wrap all 3 lengths of wire together at each joint.

Step 11 - Once you have secured all the joints, remove the star from the nails.

Step 12 - With the remaining wire, being wrapping your star any which way that you like.

You can keep it as simple or get as complex as you like.

When you've reached the end of your wire simply secure it by wrapping and tucking it into a joint of the star and you're done!

Here are a couple of variations that I played with in the car:

Hope you enjoyed the tutorial, look for these little suckers popping up in future projects through the rest of the year.

Friday's Fixin' to do it

• fixin to

vernacular peculiar to the the southern US, means one is about to do something or it is in the process of being done.

---

Most of my project are completed over the course of the weekend, so heading into each weekend - I thought I'd give an accounting of what I'm "fixin' to" do. There are so many creative people and I'm hoping that if I mention what I've got on deck, I might get some great suggestion to keep in mind while working on thing.

This weekend, we're headed to NJ. Which for some, might mean no projects.

But I've got a lot of research to do this weekend and that can easily be done on the road. Here is what I've got to look into:

• Planning for my 2nd year Daisy Troop, they've still got 9 petals to complete before bridging to Brownies. 
• Accessories for a girly girl bedroom in an apartment. One of my girl friends just moved with her 4 kids, 2 girls/2 boys, into an apartment and she wants to dress up the girls room with some girly girl accessories. I'm packing all my decorating magazines to compile a list of apartment friendly ideas.
• While on the road, I'm hoping to figure a way to wrap some stars out of craft wire, we'll see how that goes.
• And finally - Christmas gifts. I'm already thinking about them and I want to start making a list so I know what I've got to make and what I've got to budget for. 

In case you weren't following my blog last Christmastime, I did a series of handmade Holiday ideas.  I'll be doing it again this year but here are my favorites from last year:

Secret Trees

Silhouette Ornaments

Scrabble Tile Bracelet

I had a lot of fun making the Scrabble Tile Pendants and wanted to find a way to use them as something other than a pendant. So I thought - bracelet.

Materials -

• Scrabble tile pendants, you can get tutorials for those anywhere on the web, or here. You'll notice that I painted the tile black, I did this prior to adding the embellishment.
• Eye Pins, 2" in the finish of your choice
• Clasp
  
• Jewelery Tools including chain nose pliers, round nose pliers and wire cutters

Step 1: Decide the length you want for the bracelet. I used a bracelet that I've had, I love the way it fits and I lined up my tiles next to it to see if it would work.

Step 2: Take an eye pin and thread it through the first tile.

Step 3: With the round nose pliers, make an eye loop with the blunt end of the eye pin. When the eye is complete, turn it so that it is turned 90° from the eye on the bottom.

Step 4: Take another eye pin, and open the eye. 

Step 5: Loop the eye pin through the eye you created in step 3 and close the pin.

Step 6: Thread a new tile on the eye pin and repeat steps 3-6 for each of your tiles. 

And you will soon have the core part of your bracelet. 

Step 7: Add your clasp to the ends of the bracelet.

Then attach the bracelet to your wrist and enjoy!!!

I've been wearing this bracelet this week to see how it is holding up and I really love it. It is light weight, and it goes with everything.

I can't wait to make more!