Better

I'm in better spirits today. I bought a bouquet at the grocery store yesterday. Now I have pretty flowers to enjoy for awhile.

My rosebush next to my porch has lots of blooms now, too, as well as the Stella d'oro lilies dispensing yellow "sunshine".

The concert we attended last night was a mixed bag. The opener was a man playing fingered guitar. He played one Billy Joel song (which I didn't know) and the rest were his original compositions. I am sure he has much skill in this type of guitar playing, but he wasn't very personable and I never warmed up to him and his songs. After 30 minutes, the main performers appeared for a longer concert.

The Burchfield Brothers were pleasant and entertaining. It was almost a relief to be hearing "normal" music after the strange guitar pieces. Jon played a classical guitar; Ben played a malletKat, a midi synthesizer geared for percussion. He was constantly fiddling with the controls to change the sound. Ben's other contributions were different whistles, including his own vocal whistling in several songs, most notably in Wayfarin' Stranger.

They had the audience join in singing a few praise choruses. If Southern Gospel is a favorite for you, you can cruise in the Bahamas on Carnival's Elation in January. It was never clear if these brothers would be performing (they are not on the brochure) or just promoting this event for a referral commission.

This concert is part of a series sponsored by Grace College to serve as a substitute for MasterWorks which the institution hosted until two years ago when they asked the group to leave. The explanation was that the college was subsidizing a large part of the expenses by providing housing and no longer could do so. The attendance last night was maybe 1/8 what the former summer concerts attracted.

I'm not too sure these substitutionary choices are going to catch on.

This morning I went to a yard sale at Courts of Colfax. My mother-in-law lived in one of the senior apartments about a decade ago. There was jewelry, knitted items, besides clothes, household goods, puzzles, books. I bought 4 mass market paperbacks at 10 cents each which I will donate to Grace Village library. I also bought a puzzle for me.

One lady was giving away a few of her beaded jewelry pieces. I picked up some with purple beads. I have been looking for some purple earrings. I will redo these using the faceted rounds (not the cone beads).

At lunch I tried a new flavor of Sparkling Ice. I found the first swallow refreshing, but when I drank it with my meal, it clashed with the cantaloupe melon. I probably will stick with the Black Raspberry flavor.

My husband told me he would haul off the discarded books to the public library so I won't have to carry heavy stuff while my back is bothering me.

Budget Beading

At the Grace Village Swap Shop a few weeks back, I picked up a beaded necklace and two beaded bracelets. One of the bracelets was a hodgepodge of beads as though somebody took all of their leftover beads in the pink family and strung them on an elastic band. The necklace was mostly a coarse silver solid chain with a section of beads just in the center part of the neckline.

It has been almost a decade since I did any beading. I never took formal lessons; a lady in my church in Dallas who did beading held a few sessions after Bible study to share where to buy supplies and show us some of her jewelry. I looked at pictures in books to see how to do some of the finishing (clasps, ear posts, etc.) A few of us tried beading. I found the selection and stringing of the beads fun, but I never became proficient at the finishing. My loops for the earrings are always crooked, and I have had a few bracelets and necklaces fall apart because the crimp beads or knotting didn't hold.

I do still have the basic equipment though, and I decided to take the Swap Shop jewelry and rework the beads more to my liking. I had leftover beads and findings (clasps, ear wires, earring posts and clutches, etc.) to incorporate in the pieces. I should have taken photos of the original pieces but too late now.

I have the roll pliers, a bead crimper, and a wire cutter. There are other types of pliers, but I didn't invest much money into this hobby. One strings beads on a fine wire or braided cording to make necklaces. I have tried both, but all I had on hand was the wire.

A beading tray allows one to lay out the beads and rearrange them before stringing. The items lying in the tray are head pins and eye pins. The head pins are the most common way to make earrings.

I had these items in this box left from my previous beading experiences, except for the lower left corner which are the beads I took from the jewelry but didn't use.

Because the necklace had a small number of beads, I needed to add something in place of the chain. I cut off the chain, which was not links but solid metal, in effect turning it into junk.

Here is the new choker necklace and earrings I made.

I added some black cone beads and metal spacer beads in place of the metal chain. Some of the light pink beads were originally on one of the bracelets.

I liked these beads that have "flowers" inside. I used some posts I had bought on sale years ago but never used. Not sure they are the best match to the beads, but they were what I had. If I change my mind I can later put these beads on ear wires and use the posts in some other way. That is the beauty of beading; you can reuse and redo things. Have you done any beading?