Beaded Wine Glass Charms

With a few beads, some memory wire and glue, you can make these simple beaded wine glass charms.  I made a lot of these for the wedding and got a lot of complements on them.

What you need:
- Memory Wire
- Seed beads (really small ones for ends)
- other beads for decorations (optional)
- bead glue (I use G S Hypo Cement)
- wire cutters (be warned that the memory wire does damage cutters, so maybe buy some cheap ones that you would use only for this application... at least, that's what I did).

Before you start, you should have a design in mind.  Remember that wine charms should be different from each other so people can use them to know which wine glass is theirs.

Okay so here's what you do:

1.  Cut the memory wire so that you almost complete a circle, minus a quarter inch or so.

2.  Put a small amount of glue to the end of one wire and put a seed bead. Do this to only one end of the wire. The glue should hold the seed bead in place at the end.  Lay the wire and seed bead down to let the glue set (ten or so minutes, I think.  Just check if it appears set.  Full drying time is more like an hour).  In the mean time, you can glue down more seed beads to memory wires.

3.  Once dry, you can put the other beads on as the design you would like.  I like making a big bead the focal point, and the small beads for added color variation.

4.  Time to close it up.  While holding the beads away from the open side of the wire, apply a small amount of glue to the open end of wire and put a seed bead.  Again, put it aside, and let the glue dry (about an hour for full dryness).

5.  Once the glue dries, you have your wine glass charm.  You should now be able to attach it to the stem of a wine glass.

(optional:  you can go back and add a drop of glue at both ends of the wire to give it a little more strength)

Tears of Joy Packets

People cry at weddings.  It's just a fact.  For this reason, for our wedding I created these small packets called Tears of Joy.  It's a super simple packet that adds a personal touch to the wedding with very low cost.

Here's what you need:

- Clear Plastic Treat bags (6" x 4.5")

- Travel size tissue packs

- Sticker or printed label (with double sticky tape -- I used repositionable double sticky scrap booking tape, but regular double sticky should work fine).

Here's how to assemble the packets:

1.  Fill each treat bag with 2 tissues from the travel pack.

2.  Fold down the top end twice so the fold makes it somewhere in the middle of the tissue.

3.  Use a sticker or double sticky tape with label to seal it closed.

So, really that's all there is to it.

For the labels, I printed them on cardstock.  You can also use those Avery sticker labels that can be printed on, or maybe those Hershey Kiss stickers that you can print on.

Christmas 2012

Hi all!  Happy 2013.  Cheers to all on another year of crafty goodness.

First off, I have to apologize for my lack of blogging in the last few months.  The last few months, as with the majority of 2012 were exceptionally busy.  My sister had her baby in October and I had the opportunity to be with her the whole way -- which was an experience in and of itself.  My new nephew was born healthy as can be and both momma and baby did great.  Afterwards, we decided to have thanksgiving away from my home, but E and I still took care of the cooking... that required a lot more planning than we thought.  We also had another gathering at our house with my neighbors.  All in all, it was a lot of fun, a lot of cooking, and a lot of planning.

This year, I have made it my new year's resolution to try to blog more.  And it seems my friends and family have decided to help me out some with some crafty christmas gifts. :)  I love them!

Here are a few of my crafty gifts and in essence a brief look on what might be coming up in the blogs:

First a metal stamping kit with some washers.  Exciting stuff.  I want to look into making some charms with these.

Not technically a christmas gift, but my friend saw this book at a thrift store and bought it for me.  So nice of her.  I can't wait to see what I can learn from it.

I've been wanting these books for a while now. I hope to make some really cute gifts for next christmas.

I'm a True Blood fan. :)  I didn't even know this cookbook existed.  So excited.  And this book on Flowers in Wool just looks amazing.  Seriously awesome stuff.

One of the best gifts this year has to go to this bundle of fabric scraps.  My friend found out that I was getting into quilting and decided to give me this bundle.  So awesome!

I've got lots of post ideas still to come.  And since we didn't do a beanie challenge this past year, I plan to do something with Project Linus.  Stay tuned for that.  Thanks again for reading.  Until next post.