Saint Salvage

I found this cute pair of vintage cone shaped pierced earrings at one of my favorite local thrift shops: Kathleen's Closet . Their sales support the  Community Food Bank of NJ . I love finding bargains that help the Food Bank and other helping organizations. I bought this pair with the plan of using this as part of a DIY. I had these fringe beads sitting in my stash... they turned to be perfect for this quickie DIY. I bought them last year on clearance from  Michaels . I selected the brown, black, red and silver fringe bead strands because they were the only duplicate colors. I took them off the chain, and separated them; one for each side. I took a gold tone head pin and threaded it through the top of each cone. I threaded the beaded strands onto each head pin. Then, I curled each wire and trimmed them. Last step... I bent the wire back up into the cone. Here I am, modeling my new creation. Not bad for about 10 minutes of...

I bought an issue of  Wirework Magazine  at the local  Books a Million Bookstore , and I found it to be loaded with lots of ideas. Oh, what to make???? I settled upon making my version of the Helios pendant, which was designed by Deborah L. Gray-Wurz . Her project is on pages 36 - 39 of the issue, is you want to follow this step by step. I decided to use 20 gauge brown wire and 26 gauge non-tarnish wrapping wire. The chain was a bulk oval link chain I bought at the local Michaels Craft Store . The accent "donut" shaped stone was also from Michaels, from the Bead Landing Collection, and on sale for $2.99 for a strung set of 4. The dangles.... the crystals were from an orphaned clip on earring. The tiny turquoise clusters above the yellow drops were from broken earrings. The center dangle and the yellow drops were from broken earrings, too. It took me about 2 hours to do this project.... Not too bad. Oh, yes.... the extender chai...

I took a wire crochet necklace making class last night (Oct 08), for two hours, at the Michaels Store in Mays Landing, NJ . My instructor was  Rose. It was great! She had a lot of patience! I highly recommend taking a class every now and then to get inspired and learn new skills. I bought copper wire; 26 gauge, a box of beads that were a mix of yellows, oranges and metallics, and a toggle closure kit. Then, I learned wire crochet for the very first time. The first strand took the longest. It has about 35 beads on it. Then, I made 2 more strands, single crochet. I twisted the first two strands together and then the third one around the others. Lastly, last night, I wrapped the toggle ends to the end of each end of the rope. We took a photo on a display bust. My instructor, Rose took a photo of me last night. I am proud of my new creation! Today, I finished it by making a charm on the loop end of the toggle. I had a an orphan...