South Dakota Challenge 2009 Part I.......

For the last 3 years, my very good friends Sue and Cathie (from South Dakota) and I have gotten together at least once a year to party, make jewelry, girl talk and generally have a heck of a good time together. Typically we find a nice hotel in Omaha, NE and met up for the weekend.. Omaha happens to be almost exactly (by drive time) the same distance away from their home as it is from mine. We have various little rituals and traditions when we get together, like any good girlfriends do... and we added a new one last year. We got the same beads and challenged each other to make a project to show off the next time we met. We had a fabulous time picking out the beads and putting something together. We had to do it again... For this Year I got a great little Christmas package in the mail from the ladies, and it included the cutest little plastic box chock full of pearls. I just stared at the stash off and on for a few days, I just didn't have any good ideas. I had to force myself to sketch out some ideas. Below is the sketch that finally took...

The idea was to adapt a project I've made before, a version of my "crayon id" bracelets. (I've reposted a picture of one of them) Only this time I wanted to solder the frames closed and connect them in a huge neck piece. As you can see on the bracelet, it's not soldered but connected by wrapping. I love this look, but I seriously wanted to try it soldered to see how it looks that way. The last picture shows the frames after soldering but before I cleaned them, filed and sanded them and reshaped them. More to follow in part II