LBD #3

Remember those headpins I made a few days ago?  120 shiny silver pins, with so many possibilities.

Bunches and bunches of headpins...120 to be exact!
Just waiting to be discovered.

A few years ago, I made a series of bracelets that I called “Little Black Dress” – LBD.  I’d only gotten to LBD #2, but I knew I wanted to make more bracelets like those.  I decided these headpins would be perfect for a new LBD design.  The design was a pretty silver chainmaille bracelet, with clusters of sparkling Swarovski crystals.

I was short on black Swaro’s, so I decided this LBD would have a little color infused in it.  I had some gorgeous Siam crystals, which are a dark shade of red, and I thought they would work nicely with a few black, clear, and golden ones.

First, I made the bracelet and lined up the crystals.  The clear ones are teeny – 2mm!

Ready for wrapping...
Ready for wrapping…

Now, I just had to put each crystal on a headpin, and then wrap it.  When I started counting, I thought “Six crystals, nine links…that’s only 56 wraps!  I’ll be done in no time.”  Math has never been my strong suit, so I neglected to add in that I was doing 56 crystals TIMES TWO – both sides of the bracelet!

It took me a couple of days to do it.  Rex came into the studio to help me today, and while he doesn’t have opposable thumbs and therefore is useless when it comes to handling pliers, he would come over and give me an encouraging look from time to time.

An hour or so in the tumbler after I finally finished shined up the silver nicely, and I was pretty happy with the result…a gorgeous sterling silver bracelet LOADED with shiny, sparkling crystals.

Meet LBD #3:

Little Black Dress #3
Little Black Dress #3

What do you think?

 

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