MEET THE NEW CUFF BRACELETS

Okay, I've been talking about the new cuff bracelets I've been making for weeks and weeks. It's about time they actually made an appearance on my blog. (My apologies, by the way, for being so completely absent of late. I got sick, followed by rather lazy, followed by way too busy trying to make up for the first two things in this sentence!)

The bracelets came about because a stack of nice, but small, faux leather samples from a local design house came face to face with my deep reluctance to throw anything remotely useful away. What, I wondered, could you make with something that little?

Here's what I came up with:


That's one of the very first styles I came up with. Basically, if you want to do your own, you cut a piece of faux leather a little larger than 4" X 6" (10.2cm X 15.2cm). Attach a button or buttons. Placement will depend on where you want the decoration to be in relation to the lacing--near one end if you want it right next to the laces, or in the middle, if you want the button to ride on top of your wrist.

Once the button is securely attached, fold your piece in half lengthwise, and sew about 1/4" to 3/8" (0.6cm to 1cm) from the edge. Pink the sewn edge, and punch five holes on each end. Cut a length of elastic cord about 24" (61cm) long, and lace through the holes like you would a shoe. Lace each end of the cord through two holes of a four-hole button, and tie a knot. You can cinch the laces tight after the cuff is on your wrist, using the button.



After I did some simple button adornments, it occurred to me that the scraps from cutting the cuffs could also be put to use, and I did this:


Then the idea of using pinked disks of colorful fabrics popped into my mind:


You'll notice there are a few beads, too, I'm sure.

A couple more:






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A HAPPY "MISTAKE" & HOW YOU CAN MAKE IT, TOO

I've been working on cuff bracelets lately, and are mostly pleased with them, but because I work with recycled fabric samples, some of the faux leather and suede I have is rather blah, nondescript beiges, to be precise. I've been wondering how to dress up those less lovely shades.

The thought I had was to do simple collages, and then laminate them, and sew them to the cuffs. Fun. So I did the collages, and then the laminating.

Well, bummer. Once the collages were laminated, they wouldn't bend. If you can't curve a piece around your wrist, it sure ain't gonna work as a bracelet.

But they make great bookmarks!

What I've used are scraps of fabric and lace, and pictures and/or text cut from magazines, with the addition of the occasional piece of ribbon or colorful sticker. Just lightly tack everything together with a dot of glue or short strip of double-sided tape, slip into a lamination envelope, and put it through the laminating machine. (If you don't have one, clear Contac paper works almost as well. Just cover both sides of your collage with it, and you're good to go.)

Because I thought I was making something that woud be sewn to a cuff, I didn't put any backing on the first few I made. Didn't think the back was going to show, you know.

But for bookmarks, you'll want to use a backing of whatever attractive paper you have. I have scads of old music, so that's what I used.

And here are a bunch of the bookmarks. (I plan to put a bit of ribbon and/or cord through a hole at the top of each of them later.) Note: Because the clear laminate didn't really show anyway, in the scan, I've gone ahead and cropped the photos down to the collage itself.

FELICITY'S TIDE (MUSIC & SLIDE SHOW)

This is another of the pieces of music Paul and I wrote and performed together, Felicity's Tide. I wrote the lyrics after dreaming the story, and Paul wrote the music, including my flute part. You'll hear him singing and playing bazouki, and me singing and playing flute. I'm sorry to say I've forgot the name of the man who stepped in with the fiddle. Our album, by the way, was produced by Steve Einhorn of Artichoke Music.

WALTZING IN THE WOOD (SLIDESHOW & MUSIC)

My niece, genius that she is, has shown me how I can, finally, put my music online. I put one tune on in an earlier entry, but it has odd clicking noises in it from my camera. This is perfect--combine a slide show of my photography with a cut from the Cd Paul and I recorded together, Waltz of the Wood, which was also the name of our two-person "group".

In this piece, you'll hear Paul on vocals and guitar, and me on flute, with a snippet of vocals thrown in. The photos I took on a rafting trip down the wild portion of the Rogue River in Oregon, which I adore.

FROM MY KITCHEN WINDOW

I'm so glad most kitchen sinks have a window over them! I've spent a lot of time at kitchen sinks over the years, and don't want to imagine what it would be like to have to stare at a wall while I was there.

This past few weeks, the weather has been changeable, to say the very least, and quite by accident, I have taken pictures from the window over the sink, and specifically of the top of the birdbath under the rose arbor. (The deck railing interferes with the lower part, as you'll see from the second week's photo.)

Week one, and I thought, What are you doing here, Robin Redbreast? It's too early for spring to come!



Week two: I was right!


Week three: Squirrel Nutkin eats rose hips that hung around over the winter. Things like this make me glad I'm not a conscientious dead header.


Like I said, the weather has been changeable.
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A FAVORITE VALENTINES DAY (PROJECT)

Let's face it. At this point, I have a lot of Valentines Days under my belt. I've been trying to think whether I had a favorite one or not, and really not coming up with much.

My first Valentines Day with DH does stand out--I'd managed to live through one marriage and years beyond, without ever having anyone give me chocolates for the occasion. For whatever reason, that was the one thing I craved--a heart-shaped box of candy. When it finally happened, I felt simply suffused with a sort of quiet joy, and I still have the box, all these years later, and the velvet ribbon rose that held the lid in place, too.

But I really think my favorite Valentines Day was one I shared with my children.

When I was a little girl, Valentines Day at school was always a big thing. We decorated the boxes our Valentines from the other children would go in, red and white, paper lace, people made out of hearts--oh, the bliss and the excitement. Every child would get a Valentine from every other child in the class. No stressing out about whether you'd be popular and get a lot, or suffer the embarrassment of having fewer than the other kids. It was that way when my girls were little, too. I wonder if the etiquette remains. I do hope so.

The downside to all that romantic excess was that afterwards you had this pile of Valentines! Heartless (so to speak) to simply throw them away, but what to do with them?

One year, the (I think) perfect answer came to me: Placemats!



I put the materials out on the dining table, doing the necessary prep before I called the girls in. Here's what we needed:

Self-adhesive vinyl (aka Contac paper)
Valentines and other pretty pictures

The first thing I did was cut sheets of plain paper the size of place mats, to use as a template. Or maybe I used actual place mats; it was a long time ago!

I gave each of us a place mat template, and each girl her stack of Valentines. My youngest wasn't in school yet, so her sisters gave her their extras and duplicates. A decorated napkin filled the last empty space for her.

Then we lay the Valentines out, trying to fill the whole rectangle while creating an attractive arrangement. I remember it required a lot of rearranging, but we had fun, and thinking about that afternoon has put a smile on my face.

When the girls had figured out their layouts, I helped them with the next step:

Cut a sheet of the self-adhesive vinyl about 2" (5cm) bigger than the place mat. You want a border that will seal itself all the way around.

Lay the piece of vinyl on the table, sticky side up. This piece is the back of your place mat, so it doesn't have to be the clear kind, but if you do use clear, you'll be able to see the signatures, if they're on the backs of the cards.

Carefully place the Valentines on the vinyl, smoothing them down, in the arrangement you created on your template. If you have cards that overlap, it's helpful to glue the overlapped edges before you do this, but not strictly necessary.

Now comes the tricky part: When you've got all the cards stuck down, cut another piece of self-stick vinyl, and, being careful not to let it wrinkle, smooth it over the whole thing. Trim the edges, leaving about 1/4" (6.35mm) all around, to seal it.






And one last one I made for my (now) ex-husband:




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MORE SHANK BUTTON JEWELRY DESIGNS

Yesterday felt like a day to make a bracelet, so I did. Then I made earrings to match, and then more.

In the past, finding a way to incorporate shank buttons in jewelry has kind of stymied and frustrated me, because there are so many really beautiful buttons just crying to be used. I begin to think I've found the answer.

So, if you want to try this, you might start here:

A Small Shank Button Tutorial

because that's actually where I started. The bracelet simply enlarges on it. So, pictures first, and then a bit of explanation on the difference between using the buttons for a bracelet and using them for earrings.

This is the finished bracelet:


And this is what I used:

• 5 vintage shank buttons, about 5/8" (1.59cm)
• 5 charcoal mother-of-pearl flat circle beads, about 1" (2.54cm) in diameter
• 12 oblong vintage black plastic "jet" beads, about 1/2" (1.27cm) long
• 12 head pins, 2 1/2" (6.35cm) to 3" (7.62cm) long
  
• 36 black seed beads
• 2 round vintage plastic "jet" beads
• 4 small silver bead caps
  
• 1 clasp
• Non-tarnishing silver wire, 20 gauge

Here's a photo of the back of the bracelet:

As you can see, I didn't fill the gap between the shank of the button and the ring bead, which added one more possibility for movement to the piece. It also wasn't necessary to bring the wire to the back of the bead to prevent the beads' spinning to show the wrong, or back, side--your wrist will do that.

So the process would be to make a wrapped loop on one end of a piece of wire about 2 1/2" (6.35 cm) long, string on one side only of the circle bead, then the shank button, and then run the wire through the other hole in the bead, ending in another wrapped loop. After the first bead group, of course, you'll want to join the wire-wrapped loops as you go, to create a chain of wire, buttons, and beads.

When you've joined the five buttons, measure the bracelet to your wrist, to see if you need another button-bead link. My wrist measures about 6 3/4" (17.1 cm), so five was about right. More length will be added by the clasp assembly, in this case a silver capped bead wire-wrapped to each part of the clasp and the bracelet ends.

After you've created the basic bracelet, string the head pins:

• 4 head pins strung with one oblong bead and three seed beads
• 4 head pins strung with one oblong bead and two seed beads
• 4 head pins strung with one oblong bead and one seed bead

Attach one of each group to the loops joining the bracelet links, using a wire-wrap or simple loop. (I prefer to wire-wrap, as it's sturdier, and looks nice, myself.)

Note: While my seed beads were all technically the same size, I did pick through and put a slightly smaller bead on the top of each stack.

To make the matching earrings, I followed the process given in the A Small Shank Button Tutorial.

With these earrings, I did fill the space between the button shank and the inside edge of the circle beads, as I wanted the button to be centered on the ring. The beads you'll need for that will depend on the dimension of the button shank.

As you can see from the photo, I also brought the wire used for the stringing and upper loop to the back, to provide that spin-stopping function.

Finish the earrings with a dangle made from one oblong bead and a seed bead, and add the earring wires.

Just for fun, here are three more pairs, made using the same basic technique:


Notice that in the last pair, I brought the spin-stopping wire to the front, for some extra design oomph.

Well. That was fun for me. Hope it gives you some fun, too!

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