Dream Catcher Jewelry

I've been on a jewelry making kick lately. My latest adventures in jewelry making have been with dream catchers.

This is a bracelet that I made. I bought some vintage drapery panels at an estate sale some time back for the fabric and they still had hardware attached to them. Here's a side by side of the bracelet piece with one of the rings... sort of a before and after.

The rings are very light weight, some sort of metal. I wrapped one with aqua embroidery floss, tied it off, and placed a small drop of glue on the knot to secure it. Then using beige colored embroidery floss I did the dream catcher weaving within the ring. 
I wanted small silver feather charms to use with them, but of course, when you want to find something specific like that, you never can! (Do you experience that too, or is it just me?) I settled for small silver leaf charms and hung one from the webbing with a tiny jump ring.
The thickness of the ring itself, made attaching a jump ring an issue. I didn't have any in my jewelry finding stash the right size, but I did have a small bag of these tension clips. They were just right to clip over the ring on each side.
I dressed up the clips with two silver beads on each, attached a length of chain to each clip, and a lobster clasp to finish it off.

After making a bracelet I wanted to try a necklace, so I used the same method with a large ring sold as purse hardware. I changed up the colors a bit on it and worked some beads into the webbing since I was working with a larger ring. Here's how it turned out.

I used one of the same leaf charms. This one is quite heavy, but fine for a necklace. I used a large jump ring and a long chain on it, about 28".
Here's a picture of both for size reference. The small ones are light enough that they could be earrings, but I'm on a bit of bracelet kick these days.

My inspiration for dream catcher jewelry came from something I saw at Pinterest, but it's one of those pins that doesn't get me back to  an active website, so I'm not able to give proper credit... other than the shout out for Pinterest. But here's proof that Pinterest isn't just for pinning!


Thanks for stopping by! Have a wonderful week :o)

Vintage Watches Bracelet

I teased about a tutorial for a cool bracelet I made last weekend. I had some computer problems last week, so that set me back a few days. All's well now, and I'm so happy because I've been itching to show this off! I'll just start with a picture of the lovely finished product.

Isn't she pretty? I love how it turned out! Here's how I made her.


I knew I wanted a jump ring with beads between each watch, so I sorted through my beads and picked some from my stash that had lots of sparkle and a dressy feel.

I chose some clear, red, and brown Swarovski crystal beads that I had rescued from some vintage broken necklaces and set each one onto a head pin.

You know how to do that, right? Insert the pin, cut it off, bend it about 90%, then curl the end using round nose pliers. When you're done with that step you'll have beads that look something like this.

With my beads all pinned and ready, I gathered my watches.

These are some that I've had that no longer work. A couple I acquired through family, a few were bought for small prices at thrift stores, (I'm talking like $1 each). Now, here's a little tip if you decide to use vintage watches in this same manner. See the two watches on the right in this next picture?

The last one wouldn't work for this project. See how the strap attaches to the watch? It has two lugs with a pin between. The pin holds the strap on. Whereas the one on the left, (as well as the other four I'm using for this project) has a single lug coming off the watch frame. One with a pin wouldn't give you the integrity you'd need for this bracelet. I'm afraid the pin would pop out. 
So with my watches gathered I had to remove the bands. I could have just cut them away, but I'm a frugal crafter and figure I can surely find a use for them, so I studied how they were attached and removed them carefully. I won't include that process here, as each one was a little different, you'll just have to study and see how they come off of the watches you've chosen.

With the watchbands removed, I gathered my watches, jump rings, and pinned beads, for assembly.

I joined the watches with a jump ring and added three pinned beads to each side.

Continue this process until you have all of your watches joined together. My wrist measures 6.5inches, so depending on your wrist size and the size of the watches you might use more or less than five. That's what I needed for my bracelet.

I tried a couple of different clasps, but settled on a lobster claw with a short chain on the other end. 
Since none of the watches run, as an after thought, I decided to set each one with a time that holds a special meaning to me. One is set at 3:31 for my daughter's March 31st birthday, one at 10:52 for the time she was born. 8:28 for August 28th, my anniversary. 1:11 for Mr. ShowMe's January 11th birthday.  No one knows the meaning of those times but me, and that's ok. When I look at it on my wrist and see the various times, I know what they mean, and it gives me another reason to love it!

Thanks for stopping by. If you decide to make something similiar, I'd love to hear about it! 


I'm linking up with Angie's party over at Knick of Time and all the other fun places listed on my Link Parties page.




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Wrap Strap Watch Tutorial

Happy New Year!

I'm not much for resolutions, I tend to not keep them and then just end up beating myself up over them. So while these aren't "official" resolutions, I do plan on trying really hard to accomplish a few things this year. First off to lose the extra pounds that I gained last year when I quit smoking, and also to be better about blogging more often.


In that spirit I thought I'd start the New Year off with my first tutorial. I've certainly followed plenty of tutorials that the other bloggers have posted. I thought it was time I offer one of my own. Bev over at Flamingo Toes wrote a tutorial for this same project. Here's my version.

It's a knock off of this La Mer Wrap watch that I fell in love with! That is to say that I fell in love with the watch, but not the $175 price tag!

 As Bev recommended I found a skinny belt at Target on clearance. I had been checking the thrift stores for one, but couldn't find one that was "just right". I bought the watch at JoAnn's with a 50% off coupon and found the rivets at Michaels. I had to buy a package of 60 rivets, but I'm sure I'll use the extras on something else. Everything else that I used on the project were things I already had, so it cost me about $18 in all. I like that much better than $175!!

I didn't want there to be so many holes in the strap, so I cut the end of the belt off between the 3rd and 4th holes. I rounded the end and burned it with a lighter to "seal".

I then measured and made two cuts, 14 inches from each end. This gave me the two watch strap pieces.

I figured out how far I'd have to fold over the end piece through the bracket on the watch and punched holes in belt ends accordingly.

With the holes punched we put the end piece through the bracket on the watch and set the rivet. I say "we" because Mr. ShowMe had to do that for me because I'm a weakling, so I don't have a picture of the rivet setting action, but the tool and instructions came in the pack of rivets.

At this point I had a watch with a really long strap.

Now for the fun part! I got out the chains I had to work with. Thrift store necklaces and some pieces of crafting chains. I decided on which chains to use and cut each the length of the buckle end of the strap plus one inch.

I gathered the charms that I had. As it turned out, I have a lot of beads, but am a little short on charms.

I like the Eiffel Tower and the heart.. but I didn't think I wanted the lady bug on this piece. So I went through my silver beads and picked out a few that I liked. I put them on headpins and used my round nose pliers to make loops to hang them with.

Once I got the charms all figured out, I attached them to one of the chain pieces. 

See that top chain in the picture? It wasn't quite long enough, so I lengthened it by using an eye pin in two pearl beads and then inserting them into the chain to make it long enough.
I put a fairly large jump ring at the ends of the chains joining them all together and attaching one end to the buckle and the other to the watch. I wasn't able to use that third chain in the picture with the tiny pearls. The links of the chain were just too small to get the jump ring through, so I'll have to save it for another project. 

Here's the end with the chain attachment.

And here's a picture with her wrapped and buckled as I'll be wearing her. 

I'm happy with how she turned out. The strap is a bit bulky and I may trim more off of the end, but I'm going to wear it awhile and see if it relaxes some before I make any further alterations. 


Thanks for visiting my first tutorial! 
Have a fabulous week!

Proof

Here's proof that being good all year really pays off, and that I have a pretty great hubby.

Here's proof that I have the best mother in law EVER! (For many other reasons too, but she always finds the coolest vintage Florida Souvenir stuff for my collection each Christmas.)

And the goofy golden Christmas elf agrees too!

Waxed Thread, Beads, and a Filipino Button

I was in the Philippines in April on business. I've been there before. There's a lot of down time at the hotel, and boredom is rampant. I wanted to take something to work on, but traveling 8,000 makes for very careful packing. Luggage space is at a premium, so waxed thread and beads seemed like a good choice.
I wanted to shop for fabric while I was there. In doing that I realized how cheap buttons were! Packs of 6 or 8 were less than $1, so I bought some of those too. Using one of my button finds I made this bracelet.

 I think the tan color worked nicely with the light blue beads.

I gave the bracelet to my daughter when I got back home. She's always loved the color light blue, so I knew she would like it. I'm making myself one now with red (my favorite color) and silver beads. I'll post pictures once I finish it.

Lace & Pearl Bracelet

I just love the Flamingo Toes blog. If you haven't been there yet I highly recommend it. You can get there here. She has the best tutorials. They're clear and concise and her projects don't cost an arm and a leg. I have a mile long crafting to-do list thanks to Bev there at Flamingo Toes.

A while back she posted a tutorial for a Lace and Pearl bracelet. It was a knockoff that she saw somewhere. I made one of my own, but alternated crystal beads with the pearls. I had the beads from a couple of old broken 1950's crystal necklaces that I had taken apart. That's one of the advantages of having a husband dabbling in the antique business. He buys a box of crap treasures at an auction and I get all the broken unsaleable items from it to craft with.

Here's my version of the bracelet.

I had to make a second one for a good friend at work who positively swooned when she saw mine and just had to have one!