GIFTS FOR FRIENDS AND THE JOURNEY OF MAKING MEMORIAL BEADS

When I went back to Wisconsin in January for my Mother's funeral, they had the worst week of weather that they had in a long time.

Though there weren't a lot of good days, I did get to have breakfast with 12 of my friends from high school.  Some I haven't seen in many years or since the day we graduated.

I brought some Kumihimo bracelets home with me and gave everyone a bracelet.  We had so much fun talking and laughing.  We were there for 2 hours.  I decided I wanted to do something special for them, so when I got home, I made magnetic refrigerator pens for all of them.

If you click on the picture, you can see them closer.  At the last minute I decided to make little coins to add to the pens with the year we graduated (now you know how old I am 😛😊.

One of my friends at the breakfast was my best friend in grade school and high school and when we graduated, our mothers let us go to Florida by ourselves.  We had so much fun.  She has a cat named Jojo who sends Buster gifts so I made a special pen for Terry.

JOJO

It has a little heart that says I love my cat and and a charm with a cat on the top.  I also sent her this little ring dish.  It was the first one I ever made and it was the first silk screen I had ever done so that's why there is a little black mess in it but I thought it was special because of the cats.

MEMORIAL BEADS

Now that the pens are done, I've been working on memorial beads made from the roses from my Mother's funeral.  I'm making beads to use to make bracelets for my sister, sister in law and 3 nieces so they have a remembrance.

I started out with pearl and translucent clay and mixed some silver foil in it but I didn't get the result I wanted.  I took a whole package of Premo White Gold Glitter and added it to the mix.  Then, I put in a couple drops of Blue Sapphire and Stream alcohol ink.  The white glitter clay really made them come to life.

Once they were baked, they came out a little darker but still beautiful and shiny.  It's hard to see the crushed roses in these but there are few you can see little red spots on.  I glazed them with Sculpey Gloss Glaze 3 times and then re-baked them at 200 degrees for an hour.  I'll post a picture of the finished bracelets when I get them done.

After I did the small blue beads I made some big blue beads and then some white ones.  You can see the rose petals in the white beads.  I think I'm going to make more white ones but I'm going to put another package of the White Gold Glitter.  I don't know why they call it White Gold Glitter, it looks more like Silver Glitter to me.

Have a Happy Valentines Day.  Eat a bunch of chocolate and have a good time.