Jewelry

I could TOTALLY be a jewelry designer/maker. Well, I guess I already am and have been for a while... but, I mean I could do it professionally. I've never sold any jewelry, nor have I tried.

Recently I met someone with a necklace rather like the one I'm about to show you. She said it was a gift someone brought her from another country, and that the beads were made of rolled up magazine paper. I thought that was quite a brilliant idea, and it's been on my mind ever since. Yesterday, maps were also on my mind. I was going to make something like this gorgeous thing, but I didn't have a big enough map of Virginia at hand, nor did I have the means of printing one. I will do that someday, though. :)

What ended up happening instead was a moment of brilliance - but I'm sure by now you can guess what it was: I made beads out of an old map I had on hand (of Ohio/West Virginia). I think most of them turned out pretty well!

What I did was I cut tapering strips of the map, rolled them each up on toothpicks using Mod-Podge (wonderful stuff), and let them dry. note for next time: take them off the toothpicks BEFORE they dry. duh. it wasn't TOO bad, but some of them were pretty stubborn. 

So that was mark 1. I have other ideas for using the same basic concept... and I think in the future I'll make them all the more duo-cone shape (there's gotta be a name for that?!) rather than just cylindrical. Seems to work better and look nicer that way. 

I love old maps and globes and atlases. They give me such a wonderful, euphoric sense of wanderlust and adventure. :) I'll be doing some serious traveling in my life. :)

School is starting, fall is coming... I wish you well during this time of change. Enjoy the lovely weather! :)

-rosie:)