Tag: candy cane

Rings on Etsy

On By Michel McDonaldIn crafts, Etsy, gay pride, Hobby, JewelryLeave a comment

gold ring

I bought a ring mandrel specifically so I could make hemp rings.  I wondered if I could make them with the plastic lace, aka gimp, and I was successful as you can see in the image above, but the success didn’t last too long because I discovered today after wearing my gold ring for 3 days that it wasn’t as strong as I thought.  Well, to be fair I couldn’t stop playing with it.  I was constantly taking it off my finger and squeezing it.  I guess I squeezed it to the point that it broke at the seam.

Someone asked me to make some rings and hoop earrings and I thought how awesome would it be to make and sell rings on Etsy?  Since I had a bad experience, I decided against it.

I bought some steel tigertail beading wire specifically so that I could make candy cane earrings.  My idea was to use the wire to bend the boondoggle into a crook to look like a candy cane, but this wire wasn’t the right wire; it’s too thin and doesn’t hold it’s shape if bent.  I knew that even if it didn’t work, I could still use it for some other project.  Perhaps I could have used it to make a beaded ring, or perhaps make a beaded earring… the possibilities are endless.

As I was deciding against making the rings, I looked at the steel tigertail beading wire and I had an epiphany.  I could weave the wire into the gimp rings so they can’t come apart.  It just might work, or will it?

glow in the dark

One of the rings I was asked to make was with the glow in the dark gimp, so I took that opportunity to use the wire knowing it could be seen through the gimp.  Here it is.  You can clearly see the wire inside the ring.  The wire holds its shape which is a good thing to know because the hoop earrings I made didn’t exactly keep their round shape.  I mean, they are still round, they just aren’t perfectly round like this ring is.

It will probably be awhile before I make the rings and hoop earrings for sale if I do decide to make and sell them.  I want to test them out on myself first.  I am my only beta tester lol.  If I play with it, I am sure someone else will and I would much rather find out if it is going to be worth the price if someone buys it or not.  I would hate to know that someone had paid money for one of these only to have to toss it in the bin.  I like to know I am selling a quality product.

I will make another gold ring for myself because I really liked that color.  It will look exactly like the image at the top, but the only difference is it will have some wire inside which you won’t see because the gold gimp is not translucent.  I am really hoping this works because I got myself excited to wear a new ring, but I also got other people excited.  I also think it would make a cool pride ring necklace to have 6 rainbow colored rings like my own pride ring necklace.  Our gay pride is coming in October so that will be perfect to wear then.

Well I better get started with my new experiment.

Decorated

On By Michel McDonaldIn HolidaysLeave a comment

The house is finished being decorated.  The tree up, all ornaments on it, the wreath on the door with the plastic canvas candy cane I made for it.  It’s all done finally.  I’ve been putting ornaments on the tree here and there because standing for a length of time hurts my back so I can’t be decorating constantly until it’s all done.

We’re not lights on the outside people so that’s not a problem.  I wish we were but I’m just afraid that in this neighborhood someone will come along with a knife and cut the wires if they are low enough to be able to cut.  I know, paranoia right?  Wrong!  One morning I came outside and saw that our hose which was rolled up in the planter was cut and it was a significant amount of hose too.  I went to walk to the store and saw the piece that was cut laying on our grass.  I don’t give anybody in this hood the benefit of the doubt.  They don’t deserve it.

However, we do have an indoor patio which is actually kinda sorta outdoors.  It’s the space between the house and the garage, it has a wall in the front of the building with a door and the back with a giant window and a door so it’s pretty much closed off.  Darrin bought 2 boxes of lights that he wanted to hang out there, not for holiday decoration but just for regular decoration for mood.  Tonight when I was at the store I picked up these holiday light hanger things that have nails and you hammer the nails into the wood then you just press the wires into the plastic and it holds the lights.  This way if you decide to take the lights off you can then when you want to put them back up you don’t have to do anything, just push the wires back in.  It’s really cool.

Back Up And Running

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

Ok I finally got my website back up and running. I was having problems with the horizontal line (candy cane above and under this entry) but I got it all figured out finally. I had to go into “photo shop” to move the icing in the background so it’s wider so I can fit all the text in that space. The Christmas bulbs were making it too big. It’s all good now hehe.