I don't [heart] Mondays

At the weekend I got a surprise parcel - a needle felting kit won in a jewellery magazine competition. I've never done any felting before, so it's great to get to try something new for free. However, felt beads will probably prove too tempting for the cats to resist so it'll have to wait until I have a plan for what to do with them first. I've already got ideas for some earrings.

With it being Valentine's Day tomorrow, I thought I'd post about another Valentine-themed piece. A little while ago I spotted these in a random jewellery shop, of the sort that doesn't normally sell parts.

Normally I find hearts a bit twee, but I've recently become addicted to glass beads, and these are just great. The hole is drilled from top to bottom. They only had assorted colours of the large ones, and they only had the small ones in blue, so I already had an idea for the blue ones even as I was picking them out.





The idea was to string the small beads on eye pins, and link them with chain, two to a side. That does mean there's an extra small bead lying around, which will probably end up on the Millefiori charm bracelet I'm making. So far I don't have a clue what do do with the remaining large beads, maybe they'll end up on a charm bracelet of their own.


The holes are drilled top to bottom, which was fine for the ones on eyepins, but a bit big for a headpin on the larger bead. So I used an eyepin, and made a dangle with some silver chain and small blue beads on headpins. The finished product:

A black and white Valentine

What with Valentine's Day coming up, I thought I'd do a post about one of my Valentine-related pieces.

It came about because I randomly picked up some black and white coated chain in the Beads Direct sale. I thought it looked interesting, and when it turned up it was more interesting than I'd expected - the links are huge!

I decided to make the most of that fact, and wove some silver chain in and out of the links, and fixed it at each end with a jump ring, with a silver clasp at one end and a length of the coated chain at the other to serve as an extender.

To match the monotone feel of the necklace, I dug out some of the black, clear, and smokey grey glass charms from the batch in the last post. They're supposed to be leaves, but I think they look like hearts.

And there you have it - a bracelet for someone who likes their romance a little less pink and sweet. :)