The UFO -- Completed!

It's every beader's dirty little secret - that stack of half-finished, reconsidered, abandoned, incomplete, wrongly-turned projects that lie, lonely and unfinished, in the bead room. Our own stash of UFOs - unfinished objects.

Karen Williams, in her wise and encouraging way, brought together a group of beaders to dig into their UFO pile with the mission of finishing one or more of them. Karen's great at giving me a kick in the creative pants, so I had to jump in. Read all the way down, because this one took several turns along the way...

Several years ago, I wanted to build a necklace around a lovely abalone cabochon.

 The original vision was for one side of the necklace to be a Cellini spiral, with the other side a multi-strand collection of pearls. The Cellini spiral turned out great, but I couldn't get the multi-strand part of lay correctly, no matter how many times I tried.

It wasn't ugly, but it certainly wasn't right. In fact, it was so not right, I never took a picture of it. Just took the pearls off and put it aside into the UFO pile.

Until Karen's nudge. There weren't enough of the seed beads I used in the spiral to make a matching side, so that option was off the table. I decided to try the pearl idea again, this time in a braid or other structured format.

But again, it didn't work. This is that version, but this is not the final result of the challenge:

Yeah, again not right. So far from what I had in my imagination.

So what to do? I took a deep breath, picked up a pair of sharp scissors, and cut that spiral in half.

Gulp.

The resulting halves were too short to be a necklace, so I had to finish them off and add a couple of purple jade and sterling silver beads to make a necklace that I could wear without choking. The final version, while not what I had originally imagined, is wearable, satisfying, and most importantly, complete.

Whew! Thanks, Karen, for providing the motivation and the accountability. Now, go check out what some of my beady buddies have finished from their own UFO collection:

Karen Williams, Baublicious

Francie Broadie,  FAB

Christine Van Dyke Altmiller, One Kiss Creations

Therese, Therese's Treasures

Kim Dworak, CianciBlue

Liz Hart, Treetop Life

Liz En, Bead Contagion

Amy Severino, Amy Beads

Cynthia Machata, Antiquity Travelers

Hope Smitherman, Crafty Hope

Christi Carter, Sweetpea Path

Bobbie Rafferty, Beadsong Jewelry

Margo Lynn Hablutzel, My World and It's Full of Books

The "Whoops!" Challenge Reveal

Have you ever ordered something online (or, gasp, horror, from late night tv shopping channels), only to discover, when you rip open the package with wild enthusiasm, that it's not quite what you had envisioned? 

Kind of what I imagine online dating might be like...

Cynthia Machata, the glorious woman behind the creations at Antiquity Travelers, had one of those "whoops!" moments when she ordered some glass pearls from ZNet.com.  When she expected to get some dainty grey beads, she ended up with some bodacious, bold 16mm beauties.  And a conundrum as to how to use them.

So she invited some friends to figure out what to do with these big balls. What does one do with Big Balls? (Now there's a sentence I never imagined I'd write!!) They brought to mind several ideas, which I had to pare down to be able to accomplish them amid the complete lack of free time that my new job leaves.  But I hope I've turned "Whoops!" into "Wow!"

First up, Big Balls become Beach Balls, when you add some equally bodaciously-sized shell beads.

These are wonderfully light beads, with the clasp in front for added fun. It may not be completely visible in the photo, but there's a lovely grey swirl throughout the shell beads that the pearls pick up beautifully. While I may be a beadweaver, I also apparently enjoy rocking some big beads, since these 20mm shell beads came from my stash...

Then, as anyone who came of age in the late 70s might do, I thought of Disco Balls!  So I added some woven beaded beads (made with crystals I had previously gotten from ZNet.com) to channel the glam.  

The sparkle is fairly subdued, balancing the size and subtle glow of the glass pearls, on a delicate sterling chain.  I don't go to the disco anymore, but work often calls for me to be in evening dress, so this necklace is probably going to get worn A LOT.

Thanks a million to Cynthia for the chance to play with these, and for the push to get back to beading and blogging. Go see what wonderful things these other folks have created with these Big Balls -- I know they'll make them from "Whoops" to "Wow!"

Linda    http://lindysdesigns.blogspot.com/

Bobbie     http://www.beadsongjewelry.com/ (thanks for visiting!)

Christine   http://onekisscreations.blogspot.com/

Hope    http://www.craftyhope.com/

Therese  http://theresestreasures59.blogspot.com/

Val  http://missvalscreations.blogspot.com/

Cynthia  http://antiquitytravelers.blogspot.com/

Ruby Red Upcycling

So a while back, I went to an antique mall and found some fabulous sterling silver clip-on earrings. From the size and the look of them, I figured they were from the 60's or 70's. I blogged about them, and the other treasures I found that day back in February of last year (my, how time flies!).

They were also pretty hefty in size. Flip one over and you could almost serve cocktails from it. These belonged to a bold woman back in the day. Not really in style anymore.

But to me they screamed "focal piece."

And then they lived on my bead table for a couple of months.

This photo shows what I did with one of them -- paired it with luscious faceted ruby red crystals, vintage clear crystals, and Bali silver.

I'd have taken a better picture of it, but it went to a gallery soon after it was made, so I only have this shot taken with my phone.

Yippee! Reduce, reuse, recycle, preferably with ruby red crystals!

No to go figure out what to do with that other earring....