Even Snowmen Want Jewelry

Recycled glass and ice strung on Softflex

If you know me, you know I get silly when I am happy. So hopefully, this blog will demonstrate just how happy I am. I'm on winter break with my family, enjoying a beautiful snowy winter wonderland and my book, Metal Jewelry in Bloom,  received two great reviews from blogs that I love. Thanks Art Jewelry Elements and The Beading Gems Journal!

My kids have been making snowmen, snow dogs, and snow creatures of all kinds this week, so we decided to make some jewelry for them...out of ice of course. At first glance the practical application of this technique may appear, well, non-existent. However, when reading through today's post, substitute water for concrete, resin, paper clay...whatever medium with which you want to make beads.

1. This is a flexible, shaped ice cube tray from Ikea. I've seen similar ones at kitchen stores in lots of different shapes, or you can use the molds that companies sell for resin (Sherri Haab's site has a great selection).

Use an awl to pierce a hole through the mold, making sure the hole is smaller than the 2.5mm Softglas tubing (available at most craft stores) you will be using in the next step. I was first introduced to this tubing by artist Meredith Arnold who taught me that you can bake it in polymer clay!

2. Place the awl, from the outside, into the hole and load the tubing onto the awl. Holding the tubing and the awl tip with one hand, pull the awl out of the hole with the other hand, pushing the tubing through at the same time and leaving a tail. Repeat with the other hole. You should have a tight fitting tube so that any liquid you put into the mold will not leak.

3. I placed glass nuggets at the bottom of the mold to add a decorative accent. Pour in water and freeze.

4. Trim the tubing tails so that you can pop the material out of the mold. Further trim if needed and string!

Honestly, I was going to save this for an April Fool's blog, but after finishing the whole process, I realized that there were some very practical applications. And of course, that's what creating recklessly is all about!

I'll be home next week and back to some more "serious" projects. But until then try something silly and tell us about it. You never know what will happen!

Thanks for stopping by!

Melissa, Chris, Gwen and Aiden


PS - A few housekeeping tasks:

• I had a request to move the weekly blog recap to Friday or Saturday, that way, people could work on the projects over the weekend. That is a fabulous suggestion, so lets make it so!
  
• I am finally starting to post some boards on Pinterest. The first one is called "I love Circles" and you can see how it inspired my Arbor Press blog. Pop on over and follow me so I can follow you back and see what inspires YOU!
  
• If you have my book, I'd love for you to review it on Amazon...its great for readers to hear how different people use the book. (Yay!...it's #1 - #3 in Metalwork this week.)
  
• Finally, if you bought the book and/or the digital templates on my website, they will ship out at the end of next week when the DVDs arrive. 

Ok, done with housekeeping, now go have some fun!