Wishing you a very Happy Easter!
Category Archives: Spring
Memory Wire Bracelet
Bracelets made from Memory Wire are the fastest way to make a piece of jewelry for any occasion. To make one, wrap several lengths of memory wire around your wrist until you have the amount of strands you like. Three or more give you a better look. Cut the wire about two inches longer than you want it. With round nose pliers, roll one end of the wire to form a loop. String the beads onto the wire. You can do random patterns or a planned pattern. You can use a mixture of shapes and sizes or use beads that are all the same. This is a great project to use up odd leftover beads. Once you’ve strung the beads to about an inch from the end, roll the second end into a loop. You are finished! If you don’t like the plain loops at the ends, add charms like the bracelet shown in the picture above.
Make loop on one end with round nose pliers.
String beads onto wire.
Close second end with another loop.
The finished bracelet. This took me less than a half hour.
This was done in a random pattern with leftover beads in pastel Spring colors.
Spring and Easter.
Made from packages of assorted beads.
I sometimes wear the blue and purple bracelets intertwined.
This one is made by cutting the memory wire into separate circles. Then they are joined by stringing on spacer bars.
I will do a tutorial on this in a future post.
Beads were added to the loops at the ends for a finished look.
Force of Nature
Bring a little Spring into your house while it’s still cold and snowy outside with early blooming flowers. I tried my hand at forcing bulbs this winter and I must say that I was happy with the outcome.
These are Paperwhites that I picked up before Christmas. Hyacinths, crocus, and any narcissi all work well for forcing in water.
To force them, put a layer of rocks in the bottom of vase. This one was about 3 inches in diameter, but you can use any water tight container you’d like. Make it clear because half the beauty is the rocks and water in the bottom. The smaller the bulb, the smaller the rocks should be for stability. Set the bulb on the rocks and fill in around the bulb with more rocks. Be gentle. You don’t want to drop the rocks into the vase and break it. Fill the vase with water to about a 1/4 –inch up the side of the bulb.
Put the vase in a cool place that gets a full night of darkness. Keep them from direct sunlight for a few weeks until you see roots starting to form. Then move the vase to a sunny location. Mine was a little slow in forming roots, so I moved it to a sunny window early and that got it going. The bulb will bloom in about 4 – 6 weeks. Once it starts to develop leaves, it grows very fast. My bulb split into 4 stems, so I’m looking forward to continuous blooms for awhile.
These make great gifts for Christmas or Valentine’s Day. Put 3 or 4 bulbs in a decorative glass bowl or cylinder shaped vase and tie a bow around the outside of the vase with wire-edged ribbon.
Enjoy the beauty and fragrance!
This is one I forced in soil. It was very tiny, only about 3 inches tall and only lasted about a week.
