Simple Truths Celebration Hop - Redux

Ahhhh, this is so much better! I'm back with a second attempt at Miss Erin's Simple Truths Celebration. First, excuse the lint on my necklace bust (where is the lint brush when one needs one?). Second, sorry for the poor pictures. Photographing jewelry is hard! For seven years I have owned, and haven't taken out of the box, a Table Top Studio. It's a white fabric cube that unfolds and you take your pictures inside it. Whelp, mine unfolded from the little pouch into a right angle. Don't even ask - half an hour and I couldn't open it to the cube. I shall try another day with a glass of wine.....

Anyhoo, I wasn't very happy with my first attempt at this necklace. The asymmetry wasn't balanced at all. So, I removed the Lucite tube, added more pearl/crystal links and found a brass chain that worked size-wise. MUCH better. In ended up leaving the upper and lower crystals on the other side (I may remove the small MOP button dangle, not sure yet).

Did you know that coconut oil is a liquid? I didn't. Why, you ask, did I not know it is a liquid? Well, when I bought mine at the beginning of May I expected a liquid when I opened the lid. What I found was a solid, sort of waxy substance. I was a little surprised as it said coconut "oil". So, this morning when I pulled the container out of the cupboard and whipped off the lid, I wasn't being careful. What does that translate to? - coconut oil all over the granite counters and oak flooring! When it's 90ish for days on end solid coconut oil turns into liquid coconut oil. Please learn from my pain.

What does this have to do with anything you ask? Well, a little trick when working with sea glass is to rub coconut oil into it. Most of the sea glass I find is brown, white and some green (and a little bit of other colors). The brown and green can look very, very flat and, I hate to say it, unattractive. When it's wet, it glows and is beautiful. So, you can give your sea glass a little bit of a glow by rubbing coconut oil into it. It doesn't get rancid over time, it just gives a lovely little glow to your glass.

In my post last Friday I said I'd be making my own clasp based on The Art of Closure e-course I took with Deryn Mentock. As I was thinking about which clasp I would make from the course, I thought about drilling a piece of sea glass as part of it. Then the mail arrived yesterday with some clasps I ordered from Joanne Tinley of Daisychain Extra and I started re-thinking my design - and BAM here it is:

Yup, and look at that untucked wire wrap in there with all the lint.....

My soldering could be better and the hook could be a tiny bit smaller, but I was rushing and I was excited - I love it!!

Now, about the pearls - when my dear friend Roxanne's grandfather passed away a few years ago my husband and boys helped her clean out her grandparent's home. This was her childhood home, Wilfred and Arlene had raised her. It was a large task to undertake in a week's time but they did it. There were some items that Rox didn't want, but that I felt were things that shouldn't be discarded. One of them was a multi-strand freshwater pearl necklace. I tucked it away with the intent to reinvent it some day. These pearls are from that necklace. They smell like Arlene, which reminds me of my grandmother Dot and how I loved the smell of her handbag. It had the gram smell - her Halston perfume, lipstick and that undefinable "gram" scent. Gram's and Arlene's scents are different but there is a comfort there. There will be something, I'm not sure what yet, headed to Rox and her daughter Amanda later this summer with these pearls a part of it.

The sentiment on the back of Miss Erin's little owl is also a reminder to me, not that I really need one, of our beautiful T.J.for a number of reasons - but in this, to live each day to the fullest, to see and feel the beauty of each day makes us feel alive. Thank you again Erin for hosting such a sweet hop!