Beading Blunders

I have to vent. I had anticipated today to be an artsy beading day. And I really started to get a lot accomplished. Started is the key word here. Where do I begin...well, as I mentioned I am thinking of entering a craft fair next month. I even called and got all the details for it today which is a big check mark off of my list. I haven't confirmed that I am going yet and I really feel that I need to have more pieces to sell before I go. Luckily while I was in Oklahoma I got to visit my favorite bead store, Alouette. Apparently I wasn't the normal observant shopper that I usually am as you'll see below.

I laid all my beading supplies out on the table and decided the first thing I would make is a breast feeding reminder bracelet. The basic concept of the bracelet involves numbers from 1 through 12 and a charm that someone can move around to the next time they are supposed to breast feed. I have only made one and it was for my sister. Since it turned out so good I thought why not make one to sell. Who knows, it could be my signature piece. The thing is, the numeric beads I use are pretty expensive and I can only find them at Alouette. So I was pretty excited to be able to finally have all the materials I needed to make this particular bracelet. That is, until I started laying out my number beads, only to discover that yours truly apparently didn't buy a "0" bead for my number 10. Great. Now I'll have to call Alouette and have them mail me one measly bead. Wonderful. No biggie, I'll just move on to my next piece.

I had also bought some really cool African bone beads that looked like zebra at Alouette. They are square and I had to dig around to find two that were about the same size. I bought them with plans of making a pair of earrings. Basically I would have the bone hanging from the bottom with two strands of black seed beads looping up and attaching to the actual earring. In my mind they were pretty cool and would look so cute on a gal all dressed up for a night out on the town. That is, until I realized that only one of the bone beads had two holes drilled through and the other one only had one hole drilled through. OK. Deep breath. This is not a disaster. I decided I would just have it dangling from one strand rather than two. Which I did. Only it's not as dramatic as it would have been with two strands. Fine. I didn't make the matching earring. I'm hoping I will suddenly have a grand idea as to how to drill a hole through about an inch of bone. And by me I mean my husband. If we have to break out a power tool for this little bead, then so be it!

Moving on to my third and final project. My great idea for overcoming the "lack of inventory" problem for the craft show was that I would make book thongs!!! My mom had made some last year for her church bazaar and I literally use mine everyday. If you don't know what a book thong is, it's a book mark that is made out of a piece of cord with beads tied to each end that dangle out of both ends of the book when it's being used. Brilliant! I can sell them pretty cheap on my website, have more inventory for the craft fair, and use up random beads. I bought several packages of the cord in various colors at Wal-Mart. And of course, while I was at Alouette, I bought several more tubes of seed beads in colors that would match the cord. And although the previous two projects failed, this was obviously a no brainer, right? Nope. Since I had never actually opened the cord out of their packages, I didn't realize how big the cord actually was. And I thought seed beads would easily string onto it? Yeah right. And out of all the beads I have (which isn't a ton, but I am getting quite the collection) only two will actually string onto the cord.

Somehow I managed to not chunk my box of beads across the room. So much for that whole "more inventory" plan for this craft fair. But I'm trying to be realistic about the whole situation. Surely I can find something else to use other than braiding cord for the book thongs. I am confident that my husband will know how to drill a hole into a piece of bone. And I'm positive that once I receive my 0 bead from Alouette I'll have my bracelet made way before the craft fair. And I realize that my bad Alouette shopping experience is really all of Norman's fault. I should have known better than to try to go to the bead store on Campus Corner on the day of the first OU football game.

And on another bright side, I have also proven that a theory of mine is actually wrong. I found a $20 bill in my jacket pocket this morning. I always took that as an omen that it's going to be a good day. Guess not!