Just for fun, a friend and I picked up these skull beads from a street vendor here. His stand was filled with Chinese "antiques," "jade" bracelets, coins, beads and such. There are many of these folks tucked away in shops or selling wares off a blanket. You never know what you're going to find....so it's a must to take a quick peek at each one...unless husbands are nearby. ;-)
At first I thought I would make some Halloween jewelry with the skulls. However, I couldn't get inspired to add orange and black beads to these little fellas. Someone mentioned Day of the Dead coming up and I thought, Bingo! Festive bright colors are way more my speed. I fiddled with the bracelet yesterday, but it needs A LOT of tweaking. The copper seed beads are not fitting in. I may restring it onto memory wire. Katie says I can glue the skulls on the memory wire so they always face upwards.
And then, there are the earrings, which I cannot take credit for making. I had this vision of what I wanted, so this morning when the girls and I went to pick up some supplies I found the pair of earrings I was seeing in my brain. Get this-I had the beads with me so I asked the young lady to remake them with the skulls on top. That was easy! Those are CZ drops which you can now get the purple ones from Beadalon by the way. The girl was savvy in how she remade them too. Listen to this! She removed the dangly charms section from the ear wire, threaded a piece of elastic through the ear wire and both ends of elastic through the skull bead. Then she threaded one side of the elastic through the jump ring on the charms and tied the two ends in a knot (or several knots as it were). Voila! The elastic keeps the skull head snug and from twirling around. Now, why didn't I think of that? I'm really happy with them. And also, I've determined that we all need an assistant. Where's Rocker?
Learn more about Dia De Los Muertos here. The Crafty Chica has spectacular Day of the Dead ideas. Festive and fun, I'll be sporting my gems on Nov. 1st!
My word you've been busy!! Love the jewels! Lots of great tips too.
Posted by: Holly | October 26, 2007 at 07:49 PM
Great jewelry! And what a great idea to make it a celebration of Dia De Los Muertos! I have made some pins to celebrate that day. I plan to wear them to the parties that my kids will have in their Spanish classes on November 1 & 2. In the meantime, Happy Halloween!
Posted by: Frivolitea | October 27, 2007 at 07:27 AM
Fantastic bracelet! I have some fleshy color skull beads I made (and no one seems interested in them unfortunately) that will be GREAT in a bracelet like this. Oh I'm excited! I'm going to give this colorful idea a try. Thanks for sharing it!
Posted by: Christie | October 29, 2007 at 01:42 AM
Those are some pretty cool jewels :)
Posted by: Kate | November 05, 2007 at 06:40 AM