BRIDGE JEWELLERY

Happy Hallowe’en, and Samhain blessings!

I found my beads! All of them! You know what this means? I was able to finish my project in time! Even though I’ve just spent the past week almost ignoring the choker completely. I still have no plans made, so just as I thought/hoped, I will be sitting about in my PJs, drinking Bloody Marys.

Let’s take a moment to do a quick comparison/before and after/where we started vs. where we are:

I’m pleased with the result. Getting the “blood drip” embellishments “just so” wasn’t the struggle I anticipated, either. It’s not an exact representation of the image in my head, but that didn’t look all that much like the Hell’s Belle Designs version anyway. However, it flows and moves just how I wanted it to. It feels so light too. So that is a big plus.

Even so, I’m not really in the mood to give any kind of retelling of the process. But, it’s said that a picture is worth 1,000 words, so here, I’ll give you 7,000:

Not being in the mood to tell you about the process of completing my choker doesn’t mean I’m not in the mood to write (well, type, really). So, considering the date, it seems only fitting that I should tell you another story about a paranormal experience I have… um, experienced. And again, just like in Part 2 of this series, it is unrelated to this choker project, or any kind of jewellery making. If you want to skip the story, just scroll down to where the non-italicised text starts up again.

I don’t know whether it’s that I’ve decided for myself whether this is a pattern, and I’ve been unconsciously selecting these memories and sorting them into a group of sorts, or whether the majority of the “out of the ordinary” things I have encountered really are only seeing peoples’ doubles, but if I do notice anything OOTO, the theme does appear to be doppelgängers.

Not just “I met someone who looked exactly like X person I know”, but it’s more along the lines of, “did time just displace me for a moment?” I’ve seen what I thought was my brother running out of the room, when he was in fact still sitting in the same place across the room, behind me; I’ve seen two – possibly just very similarly dressed – old men walk past me in opposite directions. But the weirdest one was about 3 years ago now, at this time of year. Almost to the date, actually. It was 28 October, 2018. A Sunday. Like today.

I had taken my dog for a walk that morning, and we had spent a good half an hour getting cold, tired, and muddy playing fetch on the field at the local recreation ground. But now it was time to go. So I put him back on his lead and we started walking down the path, past the kids’ playground area and the basketball court.

It was 10:00 am, as I could hear the church bells chiming the hour, and there were suddenly a lot of people about, coming from the morning’s mass… sermon? Must be sermon, as none of the christian churches in the area are catholic churches.

My dog loves people, so usually he would be delighted that we were no longer on our own, but he didn’t really seem to be taking that much notice. He was probably shattered, to be fair. I wasn’t taking much notice either, until I heard a very young baby crying.

Well, I thought it was a young baby. Until I’d got a bit closer and noticed it was a little girl, who looked like she was about 2 years old. Maybe 18 months – very young, but not newborn young – wearing a bright multicolour romper suit/onesie thing, with her mom, wearing a really nice mustard yellow cardi. The little girl was definitely the only child around as far as I can remember, and it was her cries I’d heard.

We passed the child and her mom, them heading in the opposite direction to us, and I remember her crying stopped for a moment after she and my dog made eye contact. She pointed the “doggy!” out to her mom, and my dog slowed down a bit, like he wanted to follow them. He loves attention more than he loves the people giving it.

I quickly got him to come back to the idea of coming back to our house, and we were soon out of the recreation ground, across the road and about to head around the corner near this storybook-looking cottage, all in the space of about 2 minutes.

My dog stops to sniff around a tree, and then I hear it again. The crying. And again, it’s coming from ahead of us, around the corner.

This has to be a newborn baby, right?

Wrong.

Coming around the corner was the same little girl, and the same mom. Same brightly patterned onesie. Same yellow cardigan. Um. How?

Again, my dog stops what he’s doing, and the little girl stops crying to point out the “doggy!” to her mom and comes over to him. I say to the mom something like, “He’s a bit muddy, is that okay?” and she nods, smiling. But that was nothing like what I wanted to say. What I wanted to say was, “IhavejustseenyoutwoattheRec! How are you here already?!!!” They had been walking in the opposite direction to us. Even if they had turned around and left the recreation ground where I did with my dog, they couldn’t have been ahead of us and coming back around the corner.

I don’t know whether the little girl recognised my dog as the one she’d seen only a few minutes ago when we walked past each other, and maybe that was why she wanted to come over to him, but I was the only one who seemed freaked out by the situation. She didn’t want to give him a fuss or anything; just to stand near him. It was quite cute, to be fair. And he seemed happy enough with that, too.

The girl and her mom eventually carried on, heading in the direction of the recreation ground. I carried on walking back with the dog, quicker than before; could not wait to get home.

I didn’t look back at all, but about when the girl and her mom would have been crossing the road, I realised that I could hear the girl begin to cry again.

So, yeah. Three years later, I still don’t know what all that was about. I don’t even know how an explanation – reasonable, logical, or otherwise – would really help at this point.

Anyway, back to the present day, and my gorgeous new choker, and have pretty much been wearing it since I got dressed this morning. My kid tells me I look like a dead person from the 1940s. I hope that means it looks like I’m wearing a costume! I quite like it. For today only, obviously. Made sure I looked a bit more alive when we popped out to the shops, though.

Overall, I had fun making this, and would definitely do it again. And, funnily enough, I might be doing something like that sooner than I thought!

I posted a few pics to my Instagram Stories yesterday night, and this morning I got a message which has set a whole new load of ideas firing off around my head:

I’m really liking this. I was wondering what my next project should be, now that I’m done with this one. I’m picturing something like snow falling, or stars. Or both!

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That’s all for now. Nothing left to do but leave you with a few questions and thank you for popping in and having a read:

Do you think a Christmassy version of this choker would be good? I don’t suppose you’d rather I made it for you next time? Reason I ask is, I can already see my house getting choked up with seasonally themed chokers.

This project is finished, but I’ll be back with a new one very soon, so be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss future posts. And of course, likes and comments are muchly appreciated. 

If you’d like to see more from me, you can find me on Instagram (where you’ll find me most of the time), Twitter, and Facebook, and of course, you can treat yourself and visit my Shop!

Thanks ever so much for reading my blog. Hope you enjoyed it, and that you have a lovely rest of your day! 

If you’ve not read Parts 1 and 2 yet, you can find them here and here. But if you’d prefer a TL;DR synopsis, then:

• I saw an image of a choker I wanted online, but after seeing the price and how long it’d take to get here, I decided to make my own.
• After a couple of false starts, I made good progress on making the choker and found out that it fits just how I wanted/expected!
• I also threw in a quick story of the first time I saw a ghost. So far it’s been my only sighting. As far as I’m aware, anyway.

Right, today, I want to show you how I got on with adding the “blood splatter” to the pearls. But ahead of that, here’s a quick ‘Before’ shot, side by side with the Hell’s Belle Designs version of a Dior piece that I’m taking inspiration from:

I had a few ideas about what I could use to achieve the appearance of smeared blood: resin, acrylic paint, and nail polish. It needs to look “bloody”, but at the same time, quite obvious that it’s not real. So I decided to test each… substance? Liquid? Liquid. Feels weird calling them all liquids, although that’s what they are.

Time not being my best friend at the moment, I had to test them all on different days. So, to keep it all as fair as possible, I made sure to do everything in the same room, at around the same time of day, making the most of the natural light and available workspace. And I decided I would score each on Colour, Coverage, Application and Drying Time. There will be a little bit of maths involved for that bit, which means I got to spend a long time messing about with the colours on the little pie charts I made on Canva! Yes, pie charts. There are pie charts in my blog now.

But before we can look at the numbers, it’s going to get a bit sciencey.

I’ve written a few scientific reports before, and considered setting this out as though it was one, complete with an abstract and a discussion; even a reference list. But the more time I spend faffing about typing, the less I will have to get on with completing the choker in time for Hallowe’en. Plus, it’s not really that amusing an idea. And on a personal note, the sight of another journal or article honestly would make me want to weep right now.

To start, I dug out a few more of the pinky pearls I’d used to “fix” my choker last week, and threaded them in groups of 5, onto silver coloured wire, so they would be less tricky to handle. Though I want to stay away from this being like a scientific report, I probably should have made a 4th group kept bare as a control to compare the others against. But I suppose the choker itself is the control group. Hmm. Anyway…

So, the trials began on Tuesday, after I came home from the shops with bits for that evening’s dinner, a deep red nail polish… and a 4 pack of toffee apple muffins and press-on holographic glitter nails.

Trial No.1 – Nail Polish

I did actually need the red nail polish – way more than the press-ons and the muffins, believe it or not – because closest I already had was a bright, summery coral-ish tone which, while gorgeous, isn’t exactly what I’m looking for here. And I’ve had it for a while, so it is getting a bit gloopy and streaky.

• Colour

The shade is called Crimson, from W7. In the bottle, it’s a deep red with a lot of warmth to it. Like I expect crimson to look, funnily enough. Opening the bottle, though, the colour has more of a pinky tone. Bit more of a cooler red. Which was really enhanced by the pearls, and in turn, it really brought out their glow. But still, is she bloody enough? Not really. 6/10

• Coverage

I swiped on about two coats’ worth, and the result was still quite translucent. Or “buildable”, as they’d probably say in the cosmetics industry. Buildable. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature! 5/10

• Application

It being brand new, and having its own brush really helps it, obviously. It was easy enough to swipe and smear over the pearls; very smooth, easy application. 10/10

• Drying Time

A few minutes? I don’t know, actually. I forgot to pay much attention. There’s nothing on the bottle to suggest it’s a quick-dry formula. But I was able to touch the pearls without ruining them pretty soon after painting, anyway. 8/10 (and a 2/10 for my lack of attention. This will not be added to its final score)

• Final Score

29/40

Trial No.2 – Acrylic Paint

I mixed some red acrylic paint with a smidgen of black and an even smaller smidge of brown (and then later, blue!). It’s quite thick, so it’s got good smearability, but not so gloopy that it will take ages to dry. And of course, washing it off the brush, my hands, and my silicone mat was nice and easy.

• Colour

It looked a fair bit like old, dried blood. Even before it had actually dried. I need to reacquaint myself with the difference between shades and tones, I think. When it did dry, on camera it looked almost black, but in real life, natural light, it looked like I’d smeared chocolate on it. 4/10

• Coverage

Opaque. Just as I liked the way the nail polish brought out the glow within the pearls, the opacity of this paint really smothered any light coming from them, and I thought that looked great too. The way I’d applied it: daubing it on any which way, added a slight sort of, grubbiness, that really suits the look of it. 10/10

• Application

For old-ish paint, the colours mixed and went on quite smoothly with a paint brush. 7/10

• Drying Time

Within about 15 minutes, it was pretty much all touch dry and safe enough to faff about with. I would’ve preferred it to have dried quicker, because I was a bit pressed for time, but I can’t exactly blame paint for that. 5/10

• Final Score

26/40

Because I absolutely cannot work out how to focus on just one project at a time, I want to interrupt this post to quickly tell you about something else I’m currently working on: I’m putting some kits together, of mix and match BFF earring and necklace sets. I say “BFF”, but you could just as easily share them with siblings or parents or whoever. You could even keep the full sets for yourself; I wouldn’t be able to stop you!

How the idea came about was, I was shopping online for the red beads my choker needs, and got sidetracked by some gorgeous little precious metal heart charms. So I bought 12 of them. That shop saw me coming, didn’t they?

I’ll tell you more about them closer to when I make them available in my shop, because I want to save at least some information for that blog post. But I’m excited about my new idea and wanted to share. They’re so lovely! So, anyway, let’s now get back to these bloody pearls…

Trial No.3 – Epoxy Resin

Well, it’s called Ecopoxy Resin, and it’s non-toxic, and uses bio-based epoxies. But the biggest immediate benefit to this over the usual epoxy resin, is that it doesn’t stink so you don’t really need to have all the windows open. Which is great, because it’s getting pretty cold outside now.

This, obviously, took the longest to set up and prepare.

• Colour

In the beaker, looked a bit like raspberry jam. Not what I had in mind, but raspberry jam is my favourite kind of jam. Lifting some out with the stirring stick, and letting it run back down into the beaker, though, I could see how light-coloured and translucent it was. Not what I was after. 3/10

• Coverage

It was so runny it barely did anything except migrate into the spaces between the pearls. Which it covered pretty well, to be fair. But I did need it to show up on the surface of the beads. 1/10

• Application

I used an old makeup brush, which held the resin really well and probably would have made it easy enough to apply onto something that wasn’t small, smooth and spherical. For the potential there, I’ll give it an extra point or two. 4/10

• Drying Time

I’m drafting this post about half an hour after clearing all of the resin paraphernalia away, and pouring what was left over into silicone pendant moulds. So far, it’s nowhere near even beginning to cure, and still fluid enough that I’ve been able to easily stir a needle around in it to get rid of some bubbles. I suppose it should be at least touch dry by this time tomorrow. By which time you should already be able to read this. Irrelevant/10

• Final Score

8/40

I’d assumed, before I started, that resin would be The One. I’ve worked with it a fair bit lately, so was sure I knew how this would go. But nope! I didn’t even bother waiting until the curing stage before discounting it entirely.

Neither the nail polish nor the acrylic paint were perfect either, but they were far more easy and quick to work with. So, how will I choose which one to work with? A reminder of the finals scores: 29 for nail polish, 26 for acrylic paint.

Nail polish wins then, right? Well, yes. But I went with both.

Earlier, I told a bit of an unintentional fib when I said the only other red polish I had was coral. Turns out I do have one other: it’s red glitter. So red and so glittery, that it’s called Ruby Slippers. How could I not use that?

I’m really pleased with how it’s going so far. And again, I almost want to leave it as it is. And I could, really. It’s my project, after all. But I bought all those lovely red beads and it would be a shame not to use them.

I always have all these ideas for things to create, floating around my mind, that I would love to see in front of my eyes, but I’m terrible at translating the image in my head onto paper, to make a physical plan of exactly what I should be doing. So I just have to wait until I get the chance to make the actual, physical, thing. Most of the time, it works out pretty well. And I’m hoping the drippy beads situation, the next stage of this project, will be one of those times, too.

And that is what I will be covering in the next part of this series, which I’m aiming to get posted on 22 October. 

So if you want to see how that turns out, be sure to give this blog a follow so you don’t miss it.  

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That’s all for now. Thanks so much for popping in and having a read. Have a lovely rest of your day! 

There’s lots more to come as this project develops, and while I work out a more consistent schedule for this blog, so please subscribe if you don’t want to miss future posts. And of course, likes and comments are muchly appreciated. 

If you’d like to see more from me, you can find me on Instagram (where you’ll find me most of the time), Twitter, and Facebook, and of course, you can treat yourself and visit my Shop!