Apparently the Calendar Has Other Plans
So… we’re interrupting our regularly scheduled crafting.
I had a perfectly good plan for the next few projects—and they’re still coming—but apparently I forgot that the calendar keeps moving. Fall is already slipping away, and here in Canada, once Thanksgiving arrives, we’re pretty much on borrowed autumn time.
I still had fall bracelet kits sitting in the craft room waiting for their moment, along with a few fall notebooks that need to make their way into the shop. So, the regularly scheduled program has been temporarily bumped by a small seasonal emergency of my own making.
Nothing unusual happening here. 😂
A Kit or Two, A Whole Lot of Bracelets
Similar Thanksgiving Bead Kit - (the above kit was no longer available!
I had a couple of different fall bead kits to work through, and they definitely didn’t all turn into the same kind of bracelet.
One of the kits leaned heavily toward the fun, colorful side and ended up becoming mostly kids’ bracelets. Lots of bright fall colors, cute little seasonal beads and charms—the kind of bracelets that are just meant to be fun.
And since fall has a rather short shelf life around here, those little bracelets are heading into the shop for just $1 each.
Because sometimes you just need a turkey bracelet for a dollar. I don’t make the rules. 😂
Then Things Got a Little More Grown-Up
Another kit had a completely different personality.
Those beads turned into some really pretty heishi and friendship-style bracelets, including the FALL and COZY SZN bracelets, along with a few fall-themed bracelet stacks.
This is probably my favorite part of working with bead kits. The supplies might arrive together in one little box, but that doesn’t mean everything has to look like it came from the same box when you’re finished.
Mix in some gold spacers, letter beads or a few things already hanging around the bead desk, and suddenly you’ve got something completely different.
There are no bead police.
And Then I Found the Glass Beads…
Of course, there were also some beautiful glass pumpkins and other fall glass beads tucked into the mix.
Those weren’t going into the Bead-fetti jar without a fight.
I paired them with beads and findings from my stash and turned them into a few more finished bracelets. They have a slightly dressier feel than some of the playful bracelets from the kits, but they’re still very much fall.
Those will also be making their way into the shop at a special discounted fall price.
Basically, I’m acknowledging that the calendar says, Julie, perhaps you should have done this sooner.
Fine. The calendar wins this round.
How Far Can a Bead Kit Go?
Apparently, pretty far.
Between the different kits, I ended up with kids’ bracelets, friendship bracelets, heishi bracelets, bracelet stacks and some really pretty glass-bead designs.
And that’s probably the biggest takeaway from this little bead-kit experiment: don’t let what’s inside the box dictate exactly what you have to make.
Use the kit as your starting point.
Add beads from your stash. Change the combinations. Pull out one special bead and build an entire bracelet around it. Mix inexpensive beads with prettier glass ones. Add a word, a charm or a little gold spacer.
A kit gives you the ingredients. You still get to decide what’s for dinner.
Apparently I’ve now brought the eternal dinner question into the bead room too. 😂
And Then There Was Bead-fetti…
Eventually, though, you reach that point where there’s a little bit of everything left—but not quite enough of anything.
Seven of these.
Three of those.
One random charm.
A few beads that clearly have no intention of cooperating with one another.
Those don’t get tossed.
They’re going into my Bead-fetti jar—an ever-growing collection of random leftover beads waiting for the day when I need exactly one ridiculous little bead to finish something.
And before anyone asks: no, the infamous green bead is not in the jar.
We’ve suffered enough. 😂
Those leftovers are perfect for danglers, charms, mixed-bead bracelets or any project where matching isn’t really the point. Sometimes the best combinations come from putting together things that were never originally intended to go together.
Fall Is Heading to the Shop
So yes, this week’s carefully planned schedule has officially been hijacked by beads.
But considering how quickly our Canadian fall disappears, I’m calling it justified.
The $1 kids’ fall bracelets, $3 heishi and friendship bracelets, fall stacks and the specially priced $5 glass-bead fall bracelets will all be heading into the shop—along with those fall notebooks I’ve been working on.
Then maybe I’ll return to my regularly scheduled crafting.
Or another box of beads will arrive.
We all know which one is more likely.
