Dangly Ones! Busting Your Bead Stash with Easy-to-Make Earrings

Making cute earrings just takes a little practice. I started out by using inexpensive findings, and only the beads I had on hand at the time. It's a great way to make the most of your bead and findings stash.

See my five simple rules here for busting your stash this year.
Check out my glass seed bead bangle bracelets here.

Now I've probably made a few dozen pair altogether, and I love to wear them, give as a little gift and sell them at craft fairs. My favorite packaging is to make large tags with my Big Shot out of cute patterned paper, poke tiny holes and put the hooks right through. Then I finish packaging them in the small baggies you can buy at the craft store or even Wal-Mart. They keep everything in place while still showing the pretty beads and cute little tag. That way, for a craft fair, you can put a price sticker on the bag, but your customer can still write something on the actual tag if they're giving it as a gift.

My packaged earrings

Tags make the cutest packaging

Here is the most secure way I find to put earrings together. First make sure you gently open the fish hook finding to the side, not out in a u-shape or you'll weaken the wire too much.

Next, use a long pin-head, string on your beads securely, and about 1/8th of an inch up from your top bead, bend it over to the right.

Keep your three-in-one-tool clasped.

Then bend the wire around back to the left around your pliers to form the loop and twist around the extra wire under the loop to make it secure. Snip off the extra, and smash it down a bit with your tool to get rid of any sharp point.

These little stars were from my daughter's stash of long ago!

Now you're ready to add your fish hook on each earring, closing it back up the way you opened it. You can make some really pretty dangly ones in no time at all, just using your bead stash!

Love these sparkly acrylic beads

 See how secure that top loop looks after you've twisted the wire down?

Use the loop and twist technique, and add two or even more beads to your fish hook.

Eat, Write, Dream, Stitch, String Beads!

Good Witch Bubble Wands

When I think of being a little girl, carefree in the warm summer sun, blowing bubbles and laughing - it makes me happy. There's no reason not to keep doing that, right? 

Bubbles also make me think of Glinda the Good Witch--she always arrived in a bubble! Ever since I can remember, the Wizard of Oz would come on TV once a year, and it was a big big deal! We got to eat on the TV trays in the living room, and I would perform the whole movie for everyone after it was over--well, my seven-year-old version anyway. Of course, now we can go to Oz whenever we like! I need to plan a special evening with the family to do that!

So as I'm making dozens of bubble wand necklaces from wire and beads in my stash to sell at craft fairs, I'm going to call them Glinda's Magic Bubble Wands...or something fun like that!

Eat, Write, Dream, Stitch, Bead Something

I Made a Pin Board!

So I had an old poster-board size frame and decided to try this quick and easy craft. I needed a pin board! I want something to display some of my craft ideas - but also use to display earrings and other handmade items for sale at craft fairs.

Isn't it cute? All I needed was a piece of foam core board - which I had one stashed...modpodge and my scraps. I modpodged scrapbook papers, an old vintage pattern cover and actual pattern pieces, clothes tags and other purchased-item tags (I hoard merchandise tags by the way--no one in my house throws their tags away, especially if they are cute!) and I think there's a show ticket in there and a cute business card, plus some diecut fabric hearts that were lying around.

Now I can keep going on my earring production -- knowing I have a cute way to display!

Tags cut out of scrapbook papers to package my handmade earrings!

Eat, Write, Dream, Stitch, Bead

My Dzi Beads from Tibet

 

Can beads really be alive? If that's true--these beads were buried alive for at least a couple of years. They surfaced the other day still in the package I bought them in, and I realized that I had never actually done anything with them. I'm sure I bought them at the little Chinese shop I love, probably to use them as a zipper charm or in some mixed media project. But then I read the whole story of what they are. Dzi (pronounced "Zee" beads) are from ancient Tibet and they are thought to be alive, to the point that they have an eye which is warding off the evil for you, and keeping you safe, happy, and even bringing you wealth. Pretty good!

 The ancients made their Dzi beaded necklaces and bracelets from a rock called Agate which had beautiful bands of color in the rock, and could only be found in the nodules of volcanic rocks or ancient lavas. I bought this little necklace because it's very well made with its strong cord and crocheted slide, but I only paid about three dollars for it! The market value for authentic ancient Dzi beads can reach to the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Even the new Dzi beads can go for around two thousand. So I'm pretty sure my lovely Dzi bead necklace is a "mock" version, which is also newly popular right now...but it may explain why I wore it for a couple of days, and I'm still not a millionaire! I'm trying to decide if I should wear it every now and then, and give it a chance, or make it into a zipper charm! It's kind of fascinating, though, the whole history of beading and all of the meaning and value behind beads and crystals. I've become a Pandora girl in the last couple of years with my beautiful Pandora bracelet (seven charms and adding!) and my first Pandora ring--and all of their beads have a special significance. It makes me feel so wonderfully ancient and Tibetan!

Recently I read the story of a jewelry maker who owned a gorgeous pendant necklace she absolutely loved. This was long before she discovered jewelry making. When she was getting a divorce, her necklace disappeared, and she was so distraught (she really LOVED that necklace), she moved to a foreign country, and consequently became a jewelry maker at that point. As her business grew, she came back to California, her home state, to do some jewelry shows and she was approached by a lady wearing, what else, but her own treasured necklace from long ago.  She asked the lady about it, and found out that the woman had been friends with the girl her husband had the affair with. He gave the necklace to his mistress and lied to his soon-to-be-ex, and she felt so guilty, she couldn't bring herself to ever wear it and gave it away to her friend--the lady now standing in front of the jewelry maker. The lady was so moved by this incredible coincidence, she handed the necklace back to its original and rightful owner.  The jewelry maker and her beloved necklace were reunited after ten years apart.

I had a very special necklace come back to me once--and my daughter had a ring that came back to her about six or seven times. However, she lost it in the park a few months ago--we're thinking it must have been time for it to leave for good.

Don't you love that your jewelry can be so special and personal that it can come back to you? Or even protect you! I think about that when I'm making my pendants. Love it.