I am a secret wannabee Martha Stewart. I loved to paint, decoupage, make jewelry, you name it before I had kids I made it. Since I became a mom and have no free time or life, I decided to jump on the chance to use my table as an excuse to make some fun antique materials to make crafts. themed crafts. I first painted an antique hat box, then decoupaged it with pieces cut out from antique sheet music. This project took many hours, but I liked the finished product. Motivated by my triumph I decided since Easter was approaching I would make decoupage Easter eggs. I used my old Beatrix Potter books, that had suffered water damage to make decoupage eggs. I bought 18 wooden eggs, painted them, cut up the pictures and made adorable little works of art. I also bought two unfinished Shaker round boxes and painted them. I painted the larger one black on the outside and dark pink on the inside. I painted the smaller one black on the inside and dark pink on the outside. Too bad that when the dark pink one was drying I spilled sparkles on it from another project leaving me no choice but to cover the whole box with pink and red sparkles. The glittering magical princess box in my mind did not match the sparkle assaulted mess drying on my craft table. The debacle happened as I was putting glitter on my cool star wall hangers. I bought 3 unfinished wooden stars with large dowels in the center for hanging clothes. I covered them with a blizzard of sparkles and when they dried polyurethaned them. I called them super stars and thought the moms and kids would love them!
Wait there's more. I am Gilda Lily after all so I made stretchy bracelets with antique buttons and beads. I hate to admit that I spent two precious schools days making these little works of art. I think all of the creating and lack of sleep made me a bit creative crazy, I ran out of stretchy string and went to the craft store and left with $79.00 worth of beads and flowers. Forgetting about the bracelets for a day I made fun bright colored flower pins putting antique broaches, crystals, and rhinestones in the middle. I loved the finished products! I was so pleased with myself that I was on an adrenaline rush that helped me ignored my glue gun burned fingers and start making gorgeous bracelets. Or should I say trying to make bracelets. I put together about 26 bracelets in 4 hours. Sadly I put together the same 6 bracelets about 4 or 5 times each in 4 hours. Deciding on bead combinations was fun, quick easy, putting the beads on the string was a breeze, but tying the ends became impossible.
I bought slimmer string because the fist string that I bought would not go through some of the smaller beads. I bought this "Magical Stretch" string to make assembly easier. NOT! I couldn't tie the ends. I think part was due to my exhaustion I had been staying up crafting until 2 and 3am in the morning all week, also my fingers were all burned and lacked feeling. I would make a bracelet, try to tie it off, then the beads would slip off the string onto the rug. After this happened four to five times with the same bracelet I would shove the beads in a zip lock bag and try another combination. I was thinking perhaps the string was too short? No, the next bracelet would explode. Then I would try not cutting the string and tying it while still attached to the spool. Beads flying everywhere. Finally I used my jewelry
pliers and tied the instructed double knot, then as I pulled the knot tight the string broke and beads went....yes flying everywhere. At this point there was nothing else left to do but go upstairs and cry.
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