Needs more jewels. Always.

     I've been on the majorest of jewelry kicks lately. I don't know why, I just want to put on all the sparkly things until I look like I'm starting a new life as a fortune-teller. So last night I threw together a few things from mine and my mom's stashes of various shiny bits and bobs, and ended up with three new things to catch the eye of every bird that flies by. 

Piece #1: Hand of Glory necklace
     Cobbled together from: weird hand-shaped charm that I have a bunch of laying around, long silver chain, crystal from a thing that was on a flower arrangement once (specific, right?), jump rings.

I've really been liking putting stuff on this dress form for pictures lately; she can stand still a lot longer than me, which makes pictures easier.

     This was the easiest to put together of the three. It was just a matter of connecting all the pieces with jump rings. It's actually on a really long chain, so it layers nicely with other necklaces, like my glow-in-the-dark pendant, for those days when one necklace is not enough (every day). As a side note, I was just making a Harry Potter reference calling this the Hand of Glory necklace, but totally go read the wikipedia page for that phrase, it's way interesting.


Piece #2: Beaches be Crazy ring
     Cobbled together from: a piece of beach glass that happened to have a nice finger-sized curve to it, gold wire, epoxy. 

The band-aid should only be attempted as an accessory by super stylish people like me, it's tough to pull off (HA PUNZ OMG). Just kidding, I'm an idiot who can't do anything without injuring herself. The day before yesterday I had band-aids on 3 of 5 fingers on this hand. FASHION.

 
   This one took a little more effort to bring into existence than the necklace, but it was still crazy easy. I just took some thickish (words, they're my specialty) wire and made a circle the size of my finger -- I generally just use a chapstick for this, because using the proper tools is for squares. Then I sat the piece of beach glass next to the wire and marked with a Sharpie where I wanted the wire to end. I didn't want it to go all the way underneath the glass because it would show through, so I just left enough wire to glue the glass onto at the edges. Like this:

 

     I didn't worry about the ends of the wire being sharp because I knew I was going to use epoxy to hold the beach glass on forever and ever, which would smoothly cover any pointy parts. Really the only hard part of this was finding a way to get the pieces to sit together right while I waited for the epoxy to set. 

Piece #3: Stone Cold Rocks ring

     Cobbled together from: a pretty rock, ring base, epoxy.

 

     This one couldn't be more straightforward: take pretty rock, take ring base, glue part A to part B with epoxy. Ta-daaaa! I really enjoy this one because it matches the tiny blue-green stacking ring on my middle finger really well. In fact, I like this whole combination a lot. Rings are where I've really been going crazy lately. I just love going full Ringo with stacking rings, big chunky rings, first knuckle rings -- whatever I can get my hands on. Or get on my hands. Good god, I have no pun-restraint today. This post has become a game of "count the puns," or, depending on your feelings about pun-based humor, "count the audible groans."

     So there's my first batch of use-what-you've-got jewelry! I've actually got a second batch of jewelry concoctions using things I've already got in the works, but I have to make a trip to the craft store for that one. You can't always have everything you need on hand, that would be too easy.