Jack O' Lantern tube earrings

Last week I posted about two upcoming events: the Milwaukee Bead Show and classes I'm teaching at Terry's Treasures in King George, Virginia. If you missed that post and would like all the details, click here.

Today I sat down and made a pair of earrings for a class sample.  It was my first time stitching holiday tubes without putting them around a key, and I think they make very cute earrings!

You don't have to rub your eyes... the orange used in the earrings is brighter than the orange used in the pendant key I showed you last week.  I made these earrings using the brighter orange so I'd have samples of both opaque and transparent.

Here's a full-blown Tubed Key, or Not Tubed Key necklace with a Jack O' Lantern pendant using the transparent orange beads:

The difference is really striking.  The transparent orange is all laid back, saying, "Yo, this is what Halloween is all about, man."  The bright orange says, "HALLOWEEN IS COMING!!  I'M SO EXCITED!"

Ahem.  Sorry for all the screaming.

I'm glad I made these earrings and not just because I wanted a class sample and a sample of the bright orange.  While I stitched I made notes of things I want to make sure I don't forget to say in class.  I now don't have to try to remember how long the thread should be, how long the tail thread should be, and all sorts of things.  I'm all set for class!

My artsy interpretation of a Tammy Rae key

In my Bead&Button Show Marketplace day 1 post, I introduced you to Tammy Rae Wolter (of Glass by Tammy Rae), and I showed you the key I bought from her.  Here's what I said about her and the key:

Since I first visited Tammy in her studio (before she moved to Neenah, Wisconsin) about 4 years ago (again, wow), I have wanted one of her keys with a bead on the shaft.  Since it would be an indulgence for me, I've been putting it off.  She posted them again recently on Facebook, and I decided now is the time.  I want to stitch a tube above and below the bead.  I think that would be very pretty.  I wanted a purple bead (of course), but Tammy didn't have any with the colors of purples I was hoping for.  We were about to discuss her making one just for me, then I saw one I fell in love with.  The bead was gorgeous (of course), but what made the decision for me was the shape of the key.  The bead is a purplish color, but there are elements of blue and pink and green, so I have a lot of leeway in what I stitch, and I can't wait to choose my colors.  I'm going to wear it tomorrow so I can match colors as I shop.

Here's the key:

I'm finding it really hard to take a good picture of that bead.  Hopefully some of the other pictures will be better.

True to my word, I wore the key the next day, and Steve and I found the perfect beads to go with it.  When I started stitching, though, I decided I needed a solid pink (which I had - whew!), so this was the lineup for the key and necklace:

The first thing I did was to stitch above and below the key like I wanted to.  The bead has green on the top and bottom, so I paired the green and purple Delicas (the fourth and fifth piles in the above picture) and stitched two peyote tubes.  It was a bit free-form, as I wanted the green to extend out from the bead with little tendrils.  After each tube was done, I took the multicolored and pink 15/0s (the first and second piles in the above picture) and stitched curves on top of the tubes to try to reflect the ribbons of color in Tammy's bead.  I also added some nubs on the top of the top tube and the bottom of the bottom tube for an extra embellishment.  I do that for all my tubed keys.

It's SO hard to take pictures of this!

Anyway, after the key was done, I stared at it for a long time.  Steve told me it was fine, and that made me look at it even harder.  I didn't want "fine", I wanted spectacular.  The thing is that I don't think that my free-form artsy things look good.  Other people's free-form artsy things look great. 

After Steve assured me about a thousand times that it was pretty, I started work on the necklace.  I liked that a lot better.

I stitched a double spiral using all of the beads shown above.  The core beads (the ones in the pile on the right in that picture way up there) matched the key perfectly.  The key has some spots that look gray and some that look a little bit antique gold or brass, and these 8/0 beads have some that look gray and some that look a little bit antique gold or brass.  It's a pity that you don't see more of them in the necklace.

When I started stitching, I wasn't planning on doing a double spiral.  I thought a regular spiral (see my Anatomy of a Spiral post for a refresher on what spirals normally look like) would be just fine, but after a number of rows, I thought it looked a little bland for this key.  I added a second spiral for each row of just seed beads, but instead of going through four core beads I went through five.  If that makes no sense to you, don't worry.  The end result is that it looks a little intertwined, and the 4mm crystals are pushed up a little.  I'm very happy with how it turned out:

To mimic the pink ribbons in Tammy's bead, every fifth row or so the double spiral is all pink for a ribbon of pink throughout the length of the necklace.

When I added the key, I wanted to preserve its shape.  Instead of just having a string of beads on either side or a single bail in the center, I stitched two new spirals off of the original spiral that nestle in the curves of the key:

The trickiest part was keeping everything tight.  I went through each of the cores a few times to make sure the weight of the key wouldn't stretch things out. 

After getting past the second bail, it was smooth sailing for the rest of the necklace:

The necklace is a little over 23" long.  I wish I had bought another strand of crystals so it could have been longer.  I do have some that I'm going to put into a matching bracelet, but there really aren't enough.

Now that it's all together, I love the necklace, and I've gotten a lot of compliments on it.  The pictures really don't do it justice.

Thank you, Tammy, for creating such a beautiful, inspiring key!

If you'd like to check out what Tammy does, go to her website and her Etsy shop!

Keys, keys, and more keys!

When I was deciding what kits to bring to the Meet the Teachers Reception at the Bead&Button Show, I knew I wanted to include the "Tubed Key" kits, which consist of one ~2" key and two ~0.75" keys.  I didn't have many silver keys left (I used an awful lot of them for the wire wrapped keys for the Art Glass and Bead Show Make & Take event), and I was on the fence about ordering more or even making more kits with the black and brass ones I had.

I finally got around to tallying up what sold at the Art Glass and Bead Show, and I had quite the change of heart.  I sold a lot of those, along with my "Tubed Key, or Not Tubed Key?" tutorials and holiday patterns.  I placed an order and was very glad that none of the keys were backordered.  That's been a problem in the past, but this time I was lucky!

Today was spent doing catch-up bookkeeping and adding things to my website, so I didn't get anything new done on kit-making or tutorial-writing.  Tonight while we watched X-Men (we're going to watch all of the ones we have before seeing Days of Future Past), I opened and sorted through keys from the order as well as the ones I still had in stock.

Here are some of the black ones:

some of the antique brass ones:

and some of the antique silver ones:

As you can see, there are three styles, so it can get a little complicated, especially since the shaft on each of the styles is just a little bit different.  The holiday keys are designed for a specific style of key, so I need to have a fair amount of each style in each color handy.

Now that they're all separated, my next task is to package them to look like this:

It's not hard, but it's a bit time-consuming.  Steve will cut the cardstock for the background, and I'll stuff and sticker.

The other thing I worked on today was my website's shop page for the keys.  I'm going to have to have separate buttons for each of the holiday pattern PDFs, so it will take me a little while.

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I'm afraid that's all I have today.  If you've been working on a project and would like to share with the class, I'd be happy to post about it!  Send them (along with explanations of what it is, any challenges you've faced, or whatever you'd like to talk about) to traci@creative-pursuits.biz.  It would be nice to have something different for my readers while I'm mired in show prep.  :)

This Easter Egg looks better

Happy Easter!

We had an eventful day today.  We went out to dinner with my mother and stepfather (John) at a nice, high-end restaurant.  Dinner was pleasant, but when we got to the car we found this:

The car on the right - the one perfectly within the yellow lines - is John's.  Let's look at that from the front, shall we?

Thank goodness for iPhone cameras, huh?

The restaurant called the police and finally found the owner.  She came out and said, "I don't remember doing anything like that.  What time did you get here?" like John would have somehow wedged his car up on hers then crawled through the passenger side to get out.  She maintained that she couldn't have done that without noticing (duh) and kept trying to figure out if she arrived before we did.  Anyway, the officer said it definitely looks like the woman was at fault, but she couldn't issue a citation because it happened on private property.  Ugh.  Information was exchanged, and insurance companies will be contacted.

The damage isn't extensive, but it's the principle of the thing.  Even if she hadn't noticed the hit, wouldn't she have noticed that she was way crooked and over the line as she walked behind her car to get to the restaurant?  I guess it's good she was dim - if she had just moved her car, we wouldn't have known what happened.

Now onto to a happier, if much shorter, topic...

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After yesterday's debacle, I decided to stitch an Easter Egg I knew would look a lot better:

This is from my Tubed Key Holiday collection.  If I'd have thought about it, I could have stitched it yesterday so I could have worn it today.  Oh, well.  Now I have it for next year, or maybe I'll put it up for sale on Etsy when the time is right.

If you're interested in any of my Tubed Key tutorials (holiday or not) or kits, all of the information can be found here.

Blue wire-wrapped key

The Madison Art Glass and Bead Show is in less than a week!  Where did the time go?  I am going to be busy all week preparing, but I will not neglect you, my dear readers.  Most of the blogs will probably be about samples I'm making and other preparations, so you can feel like you're preparing with me (but without all the work).

Remember the red mixed bead wire-wrapped key I showed you earlier in the month?  I told you it was for the make 'n take event the Friday night of the show.  I still need to make instructions, so I took process shots as I made a blue version:

Now I'm all set to write the instructions!  Steve will help me cut wire, and I'm going to sit down now and bag beads.

Mixed bead wire-wrapped key

The Madison Art Glass and Bead Show is in two weeks!  Along with having a table selling my wares and teaching a class, I'm also participating in the make 'n take event on the show's Friday night.  This year my project is a wire-wrapped key using a number of different sizes of seed beads.  I bought some seed bead mixes from the Loose Bead Society in reds, blues, and greens/yellows.  

Tonight I sat down with a key, some wire, and one bag of the red mixed beads.  I took notes as I did the bail and the main part of the key, so I'm in good shape for writing up directions for the event.

Here's the key as it would look hanging from a necklace:

Here it is turned on its side so you can see the bail:

Along with examples like the above key, I'm also going to have examples of my stitched keys out.  It's a fun and easy project, and I hope the participants will enjoy it.

Star of David mini key for earrings

Almost a month ago I posted this about a Star of David key pendant I designed.  I mentioned that I modified the pattern to have two Stars instead of one because I couldn't shrink the pattern to have some white space at the end of the design.

I also designed a mini Star of David for the matching key earrings.  I knew I couldn't get the exact look of the Star in such a small area, but I thought I could "fake it" by having white nubs in the right places of the blue star.  Unfortunately, it just looked odd:

There's no telling what that is.  I took the nubs out, and it looks a lot better to me:

I think it's cute, and I hope it doesn't offend anyone!

Here is the finished key next to the finished Star of David pendant key:

I have also updated the graphic on my key information page, so that's finished until I design another holiday pattern.  Any requests?  Leave a comment here or e-mail me at traci@creative-pursuits.biz.

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Look what I received in the mail today:

That's right - a sample of the Xuron split ring pliers!  I can't wait to try them out, and on Friday I will give a full report of the comparison between these and my "Bead Buddy" pliers I reviewed a week and a half ago.  Thanks, Xuron!

Creepy eye key

Before I get started, I'd like to recommend that if iTunes wants to update your computer, don't do it right now.  I tried, and it messed iTunes up completely.  I know I'm not the only one based on what I saw in a forum.  On their recommendations I've uninstalled everything iTunes and Apple from my computer, and I'm about to reinstall.  I wanted to blog first, though.  There's something amiss in the iTunes update process, and if I were you I'd wait a week or more before trying it.

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Onto the key!

Have you noticed there's a lot of eye jewelry around now?  I hate to say it, but I think they're creepy.  I feel like I'm being watched.  :)

My friend Tammy Rae Wolter is borosilicate glass artist.  I showed a picture of her studio in my Other folks' spaces, Part 3 blog post.  Among the many things that Tammy makes are glass eyes for jewelry (instead of for popping into an empty eye socket), and I always tease her that they creep me out.  Her pieces are beautiful, but they're watching me.  I just know they are.  If you'd like to see what she does, here's her website and Etsy shop.  If nothing else, click here to see just her eyes.

I must have made an impression, because when she did a presentation at a Loose Bead Society meeting in February, 2012, this was one of her slides:

Only a good friend would go out of her way to publicly creep me out.

Well, she must have made an impression on me, too, because when I was designing patterns for my large keys (the same batch as the rainbow key and iris key, which can be seen here) I decided to design a simple eye.  I stitched it up last night for the Gardens and Gears show I've been talking about:

In case you're wondering, there is a pupil in there.  It's just really small.  Steve says it looks fine, but if I make this again I'll either use a lighter color of blue or make the pupil bigger.  The iris could probably be a bit bigger, too.  In any case, it's sure to creep out anyone who I'm talking to, which was my goal.

A key pattern webpage (and earrings made by Steve)

I frequently get inquiries about my key patterns - what I have available, how much they cost, and how much the keys are to go with the patterns.  I keep meaning to get Etsy listings up, but I knew they would be pretty complicated since there are a lot of options.  Today I got the second inquiry in a week, so I sat down and made a web page with all the options for all of the types of keys I carry.  I still want to put them up on Etsy, but this is a great way for anyone who's interested to see everything all in one place.  I know this wasn't creating in the traditional sense, but I'm still counting it as one of my 2014 projects.  Along with the web page, I made a few graphics using Photoshop, and they required a fair amount of creativity!  Here's the graphic with my holiday key offerings:

The Star of David key I showed you a few weeks ago will be added when I stitch the mini key.

If you'd like to see the web page that this graphic appears on, click here.  It's not available from my home page yet.  That's a task for another day.

For those of you who are sticklers in having something physically made for my resolution, I will be playing with brick stitch again later on this evening.  To tide you over, I give you earrings made by my husband from resistors for the Gardens and Gears steampunk show at the Mitchell Park Domes:

You may recognize the steel wire frames from my blog post a few weeks ago.  Since I have purchased the frames I want from Fire Mountain Gems, the steel wire ones are now available for other projects.

Steve had the idea this afternoon during our lunchtime chat.  He said, "I think steampunk is more than just gears and keys."  After a bit of discussion, he said, "Should I stop at a Radio Shack and pick up a handful of steampunky looking components? Like lightbulbs and resistors? Resistors would make cool earrings."  We looked at some pictures online and agreed they would make cool earrings.  He picked up a pack of 500 resistors from Radio Shack on the way home, as it was more cost effective than buying individual packages.  He used 20 to make the above earrings.  Only 480 to go!

I told Steve I was going to have to hire him as an employee if he's going to start making product.  Too bad I can't pay him in anything but kisses.

Stamped dominoes with keys

I'm still making items for the Gardens and Gears steampunk show (February 16, 2014 at the MItchell Park Domes in Milwaukee, WI).  Recently I picked up a few stamps with keys on them for stamping onto dominoes, and today I started playing with them.  I stamped some plain and some with alcohol ink as the background.

Here is a small sample of what I did today:

I have to glue bails on them to make them into pendants.  There are other stamps I want to use, so you might be seeing more dominoes in the coming week!

Rainbow key pendant

After I finished the gears and key necklace I posted about last night, my fingers were itching to pick up a needle and stitch something.  I know exactly what's going to happen when I stitch, unlike working with moveable, twisting around pieces.

A while ago I picked up a number of large keys.  The ones I usually design for are around 2" long, and these new ones are over 3" and a lot thicker.  I sell the large ones for $5 each with stitching suggestions (how big of a peyote strip to go around the key) and two patterns.  The patterns differ based on the key.  Some of them are abstract, and some of them have designs, such as an eye, hearts, or an iris:

I really wasn't planning on designing an iris, even though it's my favorite flower.  (There are irises all around the house, unfortunately for Steve.)  I was trying to design a fleur de lis, but an iris came out instead.  Because of the way the beads stagger in peyote, it's a little hard to design, especially in a small area.  When the iris started appearing, I said, "Fleur de what?"

One of the other challenges is designing a pattern that will line up in a tube.  I talked about this a bit when I showed you the Star of David key.  With designs like the iris, there's white space on each end, so I don't have to worry about the back of the tube.  One of my designs for the large keys has diagonal stripes in a rainbow pattern.  It looked like it would line up fine, but because I'm a bit neurotic, I'm never really positive until I've stitched it.

Since I'm "gearing up" for the Gardens and Gears steampunk show at Mitchell Park Domes on February 16th, I thought now would be a perfect time to stitch the key up.  It matched up perfectly (like I knew it would), and I think it's pretty cute!

If I were to do it again, I would want a brighter blue, purple, and green to better match the red, orange, and yellow.  I wanted to use what I had, though, and I think it looks fine.

If you'd like to purchase this copper key with the rainbow pattern, the silver one with the iris pattern, or if you'd like information on the other large keys and their patterns, e-mail me at traci@creative-pursuits.biz.  For you to stitch yourself, it's $5.  For one all stitched up as shown, it's $30.  Plus shipping and applicable taxes, of course.

Tool review: Split ring pliers (and gear and key necklace!)

As Steve said when he walked through the door, "It's Friday!"  It must be time for a review.  As I mentioned yesterday, I want to discuss split rings a bit more and show you split ring pliers.

The normal way to join components together is with jump rings.  They're easy to use, but if any of your components are thin, it doesn't take very much for the gap of the jump ring to work its way loose.  Next thing you know, your piece has fallen off, possibly never to be found again.  That's one reason I don't use jump rings in my strung pieces.

Sometimes, though, I don't have a choice, like when I wanted to join two components together in the earrings I made yesterday.  Here they are again:

Since the gear is so thin, I decided to use split rings instead of jump rings.  A split ring is just like a regular key ring.  Here's a 7mm split ring close up:

Just like when you're adding keys, you start at one end, wedge the component in the gap, and scootch it along until it reaches the other end.  They are clunkier than regular jump rings, but they're secure.  I know that it will take an explicit act to get the component loose from a split ring.  Normal wear won't do it.

You know how difficult it is sometimes to get a key or rewards card started in a key ring?  You dig your thumbnail in to separate the end, and sometimes it takes a few tries to get the key shoved in there.  I have scratched my fingernail, and sometimes my fingertips get sore.  Imagine doing the same thing with a 6mm or 7mm split ring.  It can be done, but it's difficult.

Fortunately, tool makers have come up with a solution: split ring pliers.  One end is straight and one end curves in to do the work of your thumbnail in separating the rings.

The one I bought is the Bead Buddy Split Ring Plier, and I bought it at a craft store (I don't remember if it was JoAnn Fabrics or Michaels) using my 40% off coupon.  Right now on the JoAnn website it's $9.99.  A number of manufacturers make them, including Craft & Jewelry (only $2.49 right now - usually $4.99 - on the JoAnn website) and Xuron ($12.47 right now on Amazon).  I'm sure there's a difference in quality between the brands.  If I was going to work with a ton of split rings, I'd probably look into the Xuron pliers.  I know Xuron makes quality tools (see my reviews for their Fireline scissors and 4 in 1 Crimper) and would want to spend the extra money.  Since I don't use split rings that often, I'm fine with my Bead Buddy brand.

Here's how it looks in action:

Once you get your component started, you can keep using the plier to help the piece around, or you can use another pair of pliers.  I like using my bent-nose pliers.  Either way, you'll probably need something when your component is at the end, because the split ring pliers don't grab.  They wedge and separate really well, but they don't grab.  You might be able to work it loose with your fingers, but I say just grab a pair of regular pliers.

The one thing I don't like about my Bead Buddy brand split nose pliers is that the black finish is coming off.  I would think that's natural because of the movement of metal on metal, but why would they put it on there in the first place?  It's unnecessary.  I'm just glad that the flaky finish isn't affecting performance.

A benefit of having these pliers around the house is that when you next need to add a key or something else to your key ring, these work perfectly.  No more scratched thumbnails!

One thing about working with split rings (with and without pliers) is that the rings can scratch, like it did on the right side of the yellow gear below:

On components without a coating like these gears have, you might not have any scratching problems.  It's something to keep an eye on.  Since I was unable to stop the scratching no matter what I tried, I decided it would be a "feature" of the necklace I made using those gears and keys:

I decided while working on this necklace that I'm happier stitching.  :)  I've heard that pieces with "movement" are good, but I keep having to turn things around to get the gears to lie flat.  This necklace is pretty, but it's not something I'll probably do again.  The best part is that I used all of the gears.  I've made a pair of simple earrings with the other blue and green keys, which leaves two purple (earrings for me!) and one yellow.  I'll find something to do with that yellow keys, I'm sure.

Pink gear and key earrings

In the jewelry section of Michaels they have a mixed media section, and I found these brightly colored gears and keys:

The color is coated on pieces, but I don't think it's enamel.  Hard to tell.

Anyway, I'm not really feeling well, so I wanted a quick project for today.  I took two of the pink gears and the pink keys and made earrings:

That's a split ring between them.  Tomorrow I'll talk about split rings a little more and review my split ring pliers.

Shamrock key pendant

I will be very quick today.  Last night I stitched a Shamrock key pendant that I will hopefully be teaching at Knot Just Beads in March.  They need a sample, so I whipped one up:

Soon (I hope) I'll have a listing up on Etsy with all of my holiday patterns ($2 each for PDFs) with options for how much you know.  Don't know peyote?  I'll add the primer on for $5.  Know peyote but not how to do the embellishments and such I have in my patterns?  I'll add those on for $2.  Need the keys?  Please see this other listing.

I wanted to do that today, but the day blew up on me.  It blew up so hard that I now need a nap.  See you tomorrow!

A Star of David key pendant

There are only two more days left to enter the Owl and The Pussy Cat Hat pattern giveaway!  Check out those links to see the hat and for more information on the giveaway.  E-mail me at traci@creative-pursuits.biz by Friday at 11:59p Central to enter.

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I talk and write a lot about my love of keys and my love of beading around keys.  I've held classes on "tubing" keys, and I've come up with a whole bunch of holiday patterns.  You may remember the Jack 'O Lantern key pendant I showed you in October.

When I was at the German Immersion School's Weihnachtsmarket (Christmas market) in December, a customer from a previous year said she loved her Christmas Tree key and asked if I had a Star of David key.  I said I had the pattern designed but hadn't stitched it yet.  I said I'd stitch it up and e-mail her a picture.  Unfortunately, time has been all wibbly-wobbly for me since then.  Post-show fatigue set in, then Christmas happened, and all that in between stuff.

I stitched up my original design about a week ago, but when I curled it around the key to take a look, the front looked fine, but the back was a little odd:

I usually like to have some "white space" between the start and end of a design, but I couldn't do that on this one.  I couldn't shrink up the design at all.  I thought about adding two rows of white.  That would make the tube a little baggier, but I would stitch up something along the top so the tube wouldn't turn or fall down, so that wouldn't be too much of a problem.

The more I looked at the back, though, the more I wondered...  Look at that picture again.  It's a little hard to tell, but it kinda looks like if I added just a few more rows in the Star's pattern, I could have a Star on the front and a Star on the back.

Today I finally had the time and mental capacity to sit down and figure it out, and I was able to stitch just four more rows and get my two Stars.

I stitched the bit that makes the tube not turn or fall down, and here's what I have, front, back, and side:

I'm very happy with this, because with the tube baggier you can see more of the Star.  Also, if it flips around while wearing (which seems to happen with all of my jewelry) the back side looks as nice as the front side.

I still need to stitch the bail so it can be strung on a necklace, and I still need to make the earrings, but I'm glad I was able to get this part done, and the pictures have been sent off to my customer.

If you'd like me to stitch one of these for you, or if you'd like the key and pattern to stitch it yourself, e-mail me at traci@creative-pursuits.biz.  I'll send back all of the details.

2014 Day 2: Beaded cat key earrings

If you missed my blog posts lately, I am running a survey to know what kinds of things you'd like to read about.  My mother is still the only person who has responded.  Please, please, please take the survey (you can access it here) and give me your feedback.  I don't want to blog into a black hole.  Thanks!

In keeping with the cat theme from yesterday, today I made some quick beaded cat key earrings.  I love making things with keys, and I have enough keys in my studio right now to unlock every house in Milwaukee, I think.  They wouldn't work of course, but you get the idea.  Piles and piles of keys of all different shapes, sizes, and colors.

That doesn't stop me from buying more, though, when I find unusual ones at good prices.  Michaels craft stores frequently have keys in their themed "dollar" sections.  If I'm lucky, I can get them when they go on clearance, but I won't turn down paying $1 for a set of 4 keys.

The day after Christmas the "Rediscover" section had two different sets of keys, and I had a 40% off entire regular price purchase coupon.  Woo hoo!  I was honestly going to only get two cards of each, but then I took a good look at the littlest key:

The key is really about 1.25" tall

Kitty!  Love it, love it, love it!  I did some quick calculating and decided to get 6 cards.  Each card had one kitty key on it, so I needed two cards for earrings for me plus 4 more cards for 2 more sets to "bead up" and sell.

I wanted to do something quick today, so I just wrapped 28 gauge wire with 15/0 seed beads around and around the keys and up through the loop so the whole thing wouldn't slide down and cover the cat's tail:

I used gray because I want the earrings to go with pretty much anything I want to wear.  Love them!!

Product review - Santa key from Oriental Trading Company

This will be the quickest review in history.  :)  Tomorrow and Sunday I'll be at the Mitchell Park Domes for our annual Jewelry at the Domes sale, and today I set my table up:

Tonight Steve and I are going to a comedy show we bought a Groupon for.  Busy busy busy!

But I have just enough time to review something I recently bought and to show you what I did with it.

I was flipping through the Oriental Trading Company catalog and found this:

Pewter Santa keys with this saying on the card:

If you have no chimney
on Christmas Eve,
Awaiting the presents
that Santa will leave,
Just hang this key
by the door for him,
And all the gifts
will be left within.

So cute, and so beadable!  They come in a pack of 12 for only $12.50.

Once you remove the card, it looks like this:

The back is flat, but that did not hinder my beading efforts, and the keys look to be very good quality.  I do wish the little dip in the middle of the loop wasn't there, but I don't think it will hang crooked.

I stitched two strips for the shaft of the key and one for the loop:

I did one in red with green nubs, too.  I think they're adorable, and I hope they sell!  If anyone wants to get the Keys for Santa from Oriental Trading Company, let me know at traci@creative-pursuits.biz, and I'll send you guidelines for how I stitched the above key.

Since the key is pewter, it's probably best to not let any children suck on it.  Of course, you wouldn't let your children suck on jewelry anyway, so it's probably a moot point.

Off I go!  Have a wonderful weekend!