Thanksgiving Madness!

Well I hope you all had a very happy and turkey filled Thanksgiving. I know my family did! We had a smoked turkey which was okay (I personally think it was a little dry) and a spiral ham (one of my favorite holiday meats). I made the mashed potatoes which came out really good. My younger cousins, Colleen and Claire, peeled them all and I mashed them. I added whipping cream and a TON of garlic and butter!

Anyway, for the last few years my Mom and I (along with other various family members depending on who's at our house for Thanksgiving) have been going Black Friday shopping with my good friend Amy and her Mom. This year was no different. One of the best deals I got this year was at Michaels. Everything was 30% off! I got some beads, wire and a bunch of findings...

I know I didn't take how to pictures, but here are some of the items I made over the holiday weekend. Hopefully I'll be able to go back and put up some how to instructions and pictures. For now, here are the finished products!

 

For these I used post findings (which I LOVE), a Celtic silver bead, a loop and a teardrop shaped bead. This are going to be a perfect gift for one of my aunts!

My Mom decided that she was going to take these earrings along with the next set of earrings and necklace. I made these with a single piece of wire, one round bead and two bead stops for each earring. I used a wire jig in order to bend the wire into the shape I wanted.

This is another set that my Mom claimed as hers. She did pick out all of the larger beads, so I guess it's only fair she got the first set. 

  

My cousin Colleen requested some feather earrings. I originally made her a pair that were just a single feather on a hook style earring back. Afterwards I started playing around with feathers and beads together and got this pair. It took a little bit of Gorilla Glue to get the feather to stay attached to the bead. The bead hole was too large for the bead finding I had so I just put a little drop of glue into the hole to keep the whole thing together. 

 

These are obviously Christmas inspired. I just took a medium sized round red bead and wrapped thin green wire around in a random pattern. This is what I got....which will make another great gift!

 

 These are similar to the ones above except I used a larger round silver bead and two colors of thin wire (red and green, again for Christmas).

 These were one of my favorites. Simple but I really like them. They are just an oblong bead with a piece of plastic wrapped wire bent around them. Easy to make and the look great!

Here's another pair of feather earrings that I made. Again, it was just a bead, a feather and the pin shaped finding with a flat bottom. This time the bead whole was smaller so no glue was needed.

Like I said, next time I'll put up how to instructions and pictures so you can make your own! It's easy and fairly inexpensive to get started. Anyway, until next time.....

Sarah