Rocks, Rust, Rings, Bones and Baubles

Rocks, Rust, Rings, Bones and Baubles

 

My first endeavor this go around is a piece that started with a discarded metal part I found while out walking. I suppose it fell off of something and had laid there for quite some time to gain some wear from water, sun and road wear. I took it home. as I often do, and it hung around in a empty hot chocolate can with some spring binder clips. Then an idea popped into my head of what I might do with it. So I rummaged around and found other items to use, and off I went. The first stone placed into the hole that fit was my starting point.

It's funny how pieces seem to suggest themselves as wanting to take part.

I had a different plan to begin with but it was discarded for this second string of beads made up of stone, metal and hematite beads. The last to join the group was the button at the top of the pendant. I coated the metal piece with clear fingernail polish to keep the rust from coming off onto the wearer. I like how all the pieces play together to make what I think is a nice harmonious whole. It reminds me of a piece I did in high school. We were asked to make something with discarded items and make them into something new. That piece was made of found objects from my Fathers workshop in the basement of our home. I put it together with an old weathered board which was cracked and covered with old chipped green paint, with some rusted metal pieces. I don't know their original use of .They became a picture of a sunburst sort of design. That was the first time someone approached me with an offer to buy something I made. She offered me an amount that I thought was way more than what it was worth. I haggled the price down to what I thought was more reasonable. Ten dollars, I think. Even that seemed like robbery to me. My sister said I needed an agent. I am not very business minded. 

 

I made this next necklace from the rescue of an item on its way to the trash. A friend of mine knows I like to make items with broken or found objects and he has a friend who goes to auctions and buys lots of old jewelry. He picks out what he wants and throws away the broken or otherwise unwanted pieces. This was a feather pendant and only had half of the chain left. Originally it was worn in a horizontal fashion. I turned it to a vertical direction and added a tassel on the bottom end. The necklace part is made with nylon thread and pale gray pearl-like vintage beads I think these are made of glass. Then in between those I have placed some tarnished silver twisted long beads. I put the pearls in groups of three and the cord around in a manner to suggest peas in a pod. 

  

The next Item is a tear-drop shaped piece of Jasper. The colors in this piece are beautiful salmon, brown and tan. I attached a bail-like piece with a small flower-shaped bead and some strong brass wire. Then I added a nylon cord with various knots and bamboo spacer beads with knotted salmon colored cord. Then I wove some wooden spear-shaped pieces through those cords and on one of them I added a bauble. I found they did not want to stay, so I glued an old friend (one of my vintage poker chips) to hold it all together. On the end of the necklace part it attaches with a hard round disk bead and a loop. 

 

I started a small tatted piece with silver spokes in the center and a man-made pearl in the center of the spokes. I used three different colors of thread. I attached it to a bangle bracelet and covered it with gray thread knotted around. Perhaps it will hang on a Christmas tree or something. 

  

A friend of mine asked me to redo a medical-alert bracelet to make it more feminine and decorative. I think I did it. I was at the thrift store yesterday and and in the display case was a bracelet with a piece missing and it was marked down 25%. So it came home with me. I think it came out nicer than when I started. I hope it will be close to what she wanted and be comfortable too, as well as decorative. I added some heart charms and a natural stone and two glass heart beads. 

 

The last piece is me just fiddling around while I was watching TV last night. Maybe I should have called this journey Lost and Found. Because all of the Pieces where made with lost or found items. I had fun. I hope you did too. It just goes to show that you can find new uses for old discarded or unwanted items and make a useful new item, also a new way of looking at things. See Ya next time.