Cris' Page: Long Time, No See!

Aloha! Yep, it's been awhile....we've been crazy busy with friends and family visiting the island and we have taken full advantage playing tourists and travel guides and generally having a great time. I have had time to play in my studio a bit as well and thought I'd share a couple of things with you on this pre Thanksgiving Day.

One thing I am thankful for is my great Art Charms group. So many talented and clever people sharing their little art treasures. Such a fun way of staying creative, making little goodies when I get busy with other things in life and don't have time for big projects. And the best part is when my envie shows up in the mail.....

A recent swap was hosted by our oh so talented Dana James. You know all those great buttons sitting around tins or coffee cans from Grandma or Great Aunt Doris? Well Dana thought we should dust them off and make some charms with them. What a great idea!

Aren't they wonderful? Did I mention that I just love it when my package arrives? Better than Christmas! These are all so cute--I wanted to do something special with them. I remembered seeing a bracelet made with buttons in a Easy Wire jewelry magazine and went through my old copies and found it!! Woohoo! (I usually can't ever find the one article I'm looking for--and of course, it's lost again so I can't tell you which issue it was in--sorry about that!) Went to work and here's what I made...

I love the way it turned out. I used a heavy copper wire (16 gauge, I think) for the bangle part, curved it into a circle a half inch bigger than needed to slip over my hand. I flattened out the ends with a hammer and drilled two holes in each side. (I think the article said to rivet it but this was easier for me since my riveting skills aren't so hot) I started with the big button in the front and threaded a long piece of 26 gauge copper wire through the button holes and into the holes on the flattened part of the 16g wire, then started wrapping and attaching the smaller buttons in each direction ending towards the back. I did run out of the thin wire and had to ad more--just twisted one another long piece. You can kind of tell on the left side in the photo but it wasn't really that noticeable. I tried at first to use just a couple of wraps for each button but found the more wraps, the more secure the buttons were and they didn't slip around so much. To end it, I just tucked the last bit under some of the wrapped wire and made sure none was poking out.

Pretty cute, yah? But wait.... It's even better with everyone's cool button charms!