Handmade Creations

A while back creative energy really hit me, so I decided to run with it and just make things. None of these are complicated projects because I’m an amateur, most of them relied on either hot glue or jewellery pliers, so no instructions - just showing off. Though if you’re interested in how anything in particular was made, just ask!

Starting with this, which is what prompted that whole creative burst in the first place. I needed some red beads like this to complete my Polish coord anyway. Sadly, for what this traditional element of jewellery is (just a bunch of red beads on a string), they’re surprisingly pricy to buy, so I noped out of that and decided to make my own. Without the Imperial Garden event in Brussels I procrastinated for quite a while, but fortunately I got them done. What took the most time was painting these wooden beads, since they were originally in their natural wooden state, and waiting for the paint to dry. Which wasn’t even that long, two coats dried in literally under an hour. The rest is me improvising a fastening with what I had. It’s not the most high quality finish, but it got the job done and I now have proper red beads to live my best Polish life.

Once that got me on a high, I picked up my box with random jewellery making stuff, initially with the intention of making some rose rings. Before that, however, I managed to distract myself with making a necklace. Both pearl beads of various sizes and these pink rose cabochons are something I have a lot of, and since I already made a pair of bracelets with these, why not have a matching necklace? This one is more of a choker type, though I still have enough materials to make it longer if I decide to. Or I could add some droopy pearls for extra drama. For now though it will live in this simple form.

The rings had to happen too though! My initial idea was simpler, just the rose cabochon surrounded by the small pearls. However, that seemed fiddly to do with just a ring base and hot glue, so I shared my base idea on my Instagram stories. My friends, @petticats, who also make lots of cute accessories, suggested a filigree base, which I had since making the chain of office for my Henry VIII coord. Whilst initially I thought the base might be too big for the cabochons, it actually worked out fine. The rings are more OTT than the initial idea and I like them nonetheless. If I ever figure out a neat way of doing the cabochon and pearls only rings, I can always do that later, since I still have plenty of materials.

This one is basically just me using up the last of those particular beads. I had enough for one bracelets and no plans to buy any more of those, so why not use them up and declutter my already overcrowded little box. The asymmetry bothers me a little and I may end up rearranging them slightly. For the time being I wanted this one to mimic the other bracelet I made with these beads to sort of make a pair.

To my own surprise, the energy continued and despite my saying that I probably wouldn’t make one, I did. A sealed envelope ring. A bit of fimo clay shaped into a rectangle and a rough circle really isn’t massively complex, it was just a bit of a bother to get the oven on just for that. In the absence of any moulds or tools to make a wax seal this tiny, I committed a crime of pressing the clay into the wax seal part of my Meta letter necklace. This is very shaky territory in terms of "did I just make a replica", but my reasons were literally that I had nothing else to make a tiny wax seal out of and because of how I did it, it came out mirrored anyway. I hope my crimes will be forgiven. A tiny bit of paint and glue later, and I finally own a letter-shaped ring that I can use with all my postal coords in the future (which I need to do more of).

That’s all the crafts I managed to engage in recently. They fill the tiny gaps in my jewellery collection really well and as with any crafts, you just get so much more satisfaction when you do it yourself, particularly as these exact pieces were very quick and very easy for me to make. Hopefully there will be another spike in creative energy that will get me using more of the crafting materials that I have so that they do actually get some use and don’t just sit around.