It WAS an earring...

There is 7 days and the rest of tonight until Christmas. STRESS!! I don't even really have time to write this blog post. :O I have to finish 3 presents and an order for someone ELSE'S gifts. I've already made one present and done one order...

...as well as this accident:

It all started out as an earring.

In October this year, one of my Aunts ordered a pendant from me to give to my other Aunt for her birthday. So I got out my beads and fabric and needle and thread, and sat down to work. This $37 product is what was produced-

Do you like it? I'm pretty proud of it. And my Aunt liked it too, whoch is good. I love bead embroidery... *sigh happily*

So then mum decided that for Christmas, wouldn't it be great if the Aunt who now owns this pendant had a pair of earrings to match? I thought, great! I need some more money anyway. So I set out to make a pair of earrings to match the pendant.

I was trying to replicate the bottom half of the diamon which is the pendant. That way the earrings would be smaller than the pendant, and they'd definately match. I had ideas of making a collection, titled "Regal Tones." It would be grand.

I sat beading with my computer next to me, with a photo of the pendant to guide me in the colours I needed to use to get a match. I beaded for half a day, thinking, oh yes, this will be wonderful. And it was, just not in the way I had intended. I never made a pair of earrings after all.

I finished this first earring, cut it out and lined and backed it. Before edging, I held it up to my ear in a mirror, just out of curiosity. Oh my goodness, what had I created?! It was a MONSTER of an earring!! Who would ever wear something that huge? Certainly not my Aunt. I asked mum what she thought, and she promptly agreed with me: however nice it looked, it was simply too big to be an earring.

I packed away all my beads in dismay. Half a day's work wasted! I could have been doing Christmas presents. And now I had wasted half my day, and was left with this, this THING that I didn't know what to do with!

I sat on my bed with a bag of craft supplies I had not yet sorted and put away. As I pulled things out of the bag, what should I find? Lo and behold, it was gold brooch backings! I looked at them, and at my time waster, and back again. Ideas started forming...

So I began to pull off the back of the earring disaster (thank goodness I hadn't edged it yet!), thinking if I could just get this backing off I could put the brooch backing in like so, cut holes in the backing, it'd fit, I could edge it...

I ended up yanking the whole backing off. Thank goodness I didn't rip any threads...

In a frenzy I glued the brooch bit down and put slits in my NEW backing. This was exciting. I didn't even really know what I was doing, I was just following half remembered instuctions from a book... And it turned out that it was really quite easy! I edged it, added a lovely little fringe, and voila! I had made a brooch!! An accidental brooch, but a new skill learnt and a new product for my store all the same.

Beading accidents don't generally happen to me. I always hear about other bead embroiderers that always leave that extra bit of room in case their designs morph out of the original plan, which they usually do. I always leave that extra bit of room, because apparently my designs could morph too. But they never did. Until now. It's a pretty awesome experience!

It's the Regal Tones brooch. And I'm pretty proud of it.

Happy beading!
Meg.

P.S. I did end up making a pair of earrings to go with the pendant, but they were such simple drops (beads on head pins) that I couldn't even be bothered taking a picture of them, haha.