Tassels

When I was a child, my grandma had a table cloth with long, heavy tassels. I loved them and could spend hours (actually probably not hours, but it seemed like it to me then) braiding them, unraveling the braids and braiding them again. They were so shiny and pretty.

Although I own a book about beaded tassels that a friend gave me to me, I never made anything from it because I didn't know what to do with a tassel. To make something with real thread tassels, never crossed my mind at all - until our JAC challenge mistress picked the topic "Tassels or PomPoms" for the November/December challenge.
Pompoms, pom-poms, pom-pons, pompons - feel free to choose your favorite spelling - were right out. I have pompom makers for two different sizes because I thought I could make some myself for Gundel and den Dekan to play with, but was never very good with the cardboard rings, but even with pro equipment I either suck at it or der Dekan is extremely good at disassembling pompoms. It's probably both. Anyway, I'm a bit miffed with pompoms now, so I had to pick tassels.

Of course I could have grabbed my book now and fight my way through instructions, something I don't have much patience for, also I remembered that all of the projects would have called for a bead order, another thing I didn't have the patience for at the moment (bead orders take me really long because I am obsessed with not forgetting anything, not that that ever works out).
I also didn't want to order a bunch of thread tassels most of which I would probably never use, and I definitely didn't want to make any myself if I didn't have to.

I know, that sounds as if I wasn't very motivated, but that wasn't it. I thought I would definitely do some kind of beaded tassel, only not quite as ambitious as the ones in the book.
Then, however, I remembered that I had bought a strand of beads sometime ago that had thread tassels on each end and that I had kept them after cutting up the strand. Lucky me because now I just had to come up with something for the top!

That's where my advent calendar from 2022 comes in, the Christmas Bells, to be precise. How about using their top part for inspiration and building something up from crystals - firepolished instead of bicones - and seed beads?
So that's what I did, with the help of a Christmas movie for background noise (Hallmark which one of our TV channels is running up and down right now, so I didn't have to worry about not catching important information, and guess what, there was a happy ending 🤣).
I think they fit the festive season quite well and I promise not to braid the threads!

Tackle that stash - Beaded pendant with crystals

Remember last week's stash tackler?
Although I had more plans for this week, I didn't make it due to different reasons. What I managed to make last weekend, however, is inspired by the Bollywood bangles by Jill Wiseman. Again the word Bollywood doesn't really fit because I used almost the same colors for this pendant as for one of the bangles I made - minus the brown seed beads.
A gold tone chain added, here you go :-)
I also got some silver and red out, so stay tuned!

Tackle that stash - Beaded bangles with crystals

It was pure coincidence that I rummaged around in my "various beads" drawer and received the YouTube subscription email in the same week. That way I was not only reminded that I still had some tile beads in my drawer, but I also got an idea what to make with them. I had only worked with tile beads once before and that had been inspired by my ribbon and bead bracelets (that are made using a loom, but are not bead loomed). While my tile stash wouldn't have been big enough for another one of those, the Bollywood Bangles design by Jill Wiseman worked perfectly.

Only my bangles are so not Bollywood at all. My tiles were silver and a marbled lavender and beige, I only have two colors of size 15 seed beads (for a different project), black and gunmetal, and my Twin Beads are limited in color choice as well. I could have used some bright colored crystals to make up for that, but for now I decided to stay subtle.

For this bangle I used the marbled tiles with brown and gold lined seed beads in size 11, matte metallic golden Twins, but instead of using size 15 seed beads and smaller bicone crystals as in the video I chose these bigger beautiful firepolished crystals (originally I had got them to use them with a tutorial that I lost patience with). Actually I think they sit better than the bicones, and I don't mind that you don't see as much of the tile beads.

Then there is this set of bangles with crystals in grey, pink and a light burgundy. They are very sparkly in the light and they do look great stacked!

I already have some more ideas for small variations, but that will mean a bead order which is not in my plans for the moment as I really have to finish up some WIPs first. Remind me, though, if I forget! ;-)

Tackle that stash - Beaded blue hearts bracelet

The other day I made a pair of earrings for the monthly Jewelry Artisans Community challenge, shoulder dusters, larger deep red firepolished crystals, black and golden seed beads and red crystal drops, very gothic.
I figured the design that had come from a slightly messed up filled netting bangle would also work for a bracelet ... and how about using bicone crystals ... silver and blue maybe ... what do I have in my little drawer ... hey, wait!

It's amazing. I go through that crystals drawer a lot, sometimes just to take in the sparkle, but I hadn't seen that small bag of blue firepolished crystals in months. How they worked their way to the front all by themselves, I don't know, but they were certainly looking for attention.
At first I wanted to make another pair of earrings, but the longer the line of little "hearts" became, the more those crystals wanted to be a dainty and sweet bracelet. Who am I to disagree?

These are the earrings, by the way.
Due to technical reasons which caused a lot of hair tearing, hitting my head on the table and sobbing uncontrollably none is listed yet, but let me know if you would like to see more in this design, maybe with some other colors, too?