The Necklace

Yes, my title is part of my leetle contest. It's the title of a very famous short story. Can you name the author of the short story? Don't let me down, Mindy, my fellow English connoisseur.

A lady in my mom's ward had an "Art Appreciation Night" at her house. She's a professional artist, and she is amazing. She sculpts, does bronze castings, paints, you name it. She wanted to kind of show some of her artwork to everyone who came, and then have everyone make necklaces, for absolutely free. My mom invited me and my aunt - we three are kind of artsy-fartsy. My aunt especially. She painted a watercolor of poinsettias, then had someone make her painting into Christmas cards for her to send out this year. They were gorgeous. I'm jealous; I'm really bad at watercolor.

Anywho, it was wonderful to walk around the lady's house and see the kinds of things she has created, in addition to the prints she has around her house of famous paintings that I have always liked. We had been walking around the house for maybe 45 minutes or so when one very uncouth guest said, "Um, can we get on to making the necklaces? I have somewhere to go." I thought it was a leetle rude. I mean, if the hostess is providing necklace materials for absolutely free, even if a guest isn't into art, she should just keep her mouth shut and be patient through the tour, right?? Beggars can't be choosers. The funny thing is, the rude guest ended up staying later than anyone else making necklaces. She had somewhere to go, my butt!!

The hostess provided tons of different beads and fake gemstones and polished rocks, plus the pendants and clasp thingeys. And the special mega-glue. We just glued the stones onto the pendants, and then glued the clasp thingeys to the back of the pendants. It was easy and soooo much fun.

My mama:

Aunt Terri:

This is one my mom was making:

Most of the little gems and stones were very shiny and fancy. And most of the women put all different colors onto their pendants. I had a hard time with it; what clothing would I have that would match something so shiny and fancy? I'm not a shiny/fancy kind of a girl. And my clothes certainly aren't shiny or fancy. So I went for a little bit more of a muted look. I chose small polished rocks, all in the same color, to glue onto my pendants:

I ended up making five:

Are they not so stinkin' cute? And then I decided to give them to my sis, Lex, for Christmas. Lex loves the same kind of bold, chunky jewelery that I like. I gave her the pendants yesterday, and she loved them! I'm so glad. I was worried. I also made her some leather necklaces with clasps - three different lengths - to put her pendants on, depending on the kind of shirt she is wearing.

This experience only heightened my desire to get into jewelery-making. Next paycheck, I'm going to get some stuff and learn how to do it for reals. You mark my words.