The sun came out.

I was so pleased, after yesterday's rant about the cold, that the sun came out today. I am currently sitting in my study with the sun shining on my back. Ah sweet sweet warmth. One of the many great things about our house is that it faces East. This means that the front of the house has sun all morning and the back has it all afternoon. In Winter this means that you can follow the sun around the house to stay warm (providing it ever appears). In the Summer you can follow the shade around the house to keep cool. We also have very large windows to capture all the light when it is grey and cold, and then to open up wide when it gets hot. Today even though we have no boiler I am relatively warm sat in my study typing this up.

Because of the unexpected sun, I am very pleased report some actual crafting has taken place - yippeee! I took the opportunity to play with some beads. I combined some beads I have had for a little while, with some of those that got bought at the NEC. Do you remember these?

When I bought them I had no idea what I was going to do with them because they didn't seem to "go" with anything I already had. So I thought I would start out by using a couple of the beads to make a pair of basic earrings. When I had finished I took another peek in my big box of beading goodies and found this amazing stone.

I fell in love with this pink stone when it first arrived in Mary Clare. There were some rectangular ones as well, but I love this tear drop shape and had to buy it immediately with no thought at all about what it would go with. I was glad I did, because the rest got snapped up almost immediately.

I later bought the marble type stones which have a very neutral colour to them but have a warmth that mean they can go with the pink. I put all these stones together with the purple ones from the NEC and added some tiny pearl seed beads and the result was this:

I started off fixing the main necklace to the pendant part just through the tiny loop at the top of the pendant.

This twisted the necklace quite a lot and I decided that it was going to drive me nuts, so I inserted a split ring to allow the junction to move around a bit more freely. I think this solution worked.

It certainly looks more elegant. I think I am starting to get the hang of this type of necklace, though I am sure I will do lots more just to improve my techniques and my eye. I know that others may have done much better things with the same stones, but I am satisfied with what I have at the moment.

I am really enjoying building up my collection of home crafted jewellery. I can make jewellery that doesn't cost a fortune which means I can wear it every day. I don't fret about things getting a bit bashed because if it does, I'll just make a new one. It also means I get to wear things that look exactly as I pictured, rather than settling for something that kind of looks like the image I had in my head that I found in a shop. I stopped buying costume jewellery a long time ago, because I had nice jewellery given to me over the years and felt that I should wear that. However, I don't wear the nice stuff for every day because that diminishes how special it makes me feel. The home crafted stuff fills the gap I have created for myself. It also lets me play with pretty things!

Hopefully the sun will continue to shine and I will have other things to show you.