Epic Fail

Not every piece of jewelry you make is going to be a winner - although - usually you can figure out that it's not going to cut it before you finish it. Before you crimp the final crimp.

And, it's always good to remember that you learn more from your mistakes than you do from your successes.

Although, really - I prefer to learn from OTHER people's mistakes. ;-)

Anyway - I should have known better, and as soon as I finished this bracelet - I knew I had goofed.

Let's have a look at it, shall we?









Looks pretty, doesn't it? Why is that a fail?

Well because - it's unwearable and I'm afraid it's going to break the beads. These are the new Graphic Cube shape - coming soon on the website, and I thought they looked really nice and I would make an inspiration from them.

Note the name. Graphic Cube. Cube. c.u.b.e. As in "square thing." Not inclined to roll. Or rather, takes a heck of an incline to roll it. (A little science humour there.)

Now - I know better than to string a bunch of cubes in a row and then try and curve the line. Hence, the rounds in my famous Cubic Bling Bling bracelet. (I know it is famous - I met a total stranger wearing one in the grocery store.)

And I tried stringing these with some 3 mm gold rounds - and I, er - just knew I didn't have enough to do the five strands I wanted to do.

And the silver ones didn't go with the firey colour palette.

So - I went ahead and strung them side by side. And they seemed ok.

Crimped them on. Snugged up the other side. Secured the crimps. Went to try it on.

Nearly impossible to do up. You need a fair amount of lateral displacement - side to side movement - to get the clasp to line up for closing - and it just didn't wanna. And then, when I did get it on - it wasn't just tight - the beads were tight on the strands. A sort of angry groaning sound as the beads pushed and ground against each other. Oh oh. This is going to break these beads.

So - I'm going to have to rethink this design. It's unfortunate - because I really like the look.

I could restring it with the beads looser - leave some slack. Unfortunately - that means that when it is laying around on the desk - it is going to look badly-made, and that might make me insane.

I won't string crystals on stretchy cord. I'm not putting that much money on something that can break. Period.

So I guess I need to find something that will fit between beads that acts as a pivot so it can flex.

But you can see from the photos that it looks good, and if I hadn't told you that it was a fail - would you have known? Which is one of the things that irritates me a little about many of the projects in bead magazines. They don't show them on human models - and you're never sure - until you finish it, if it is going to drape nicely or hang correctly.








Oh, and as I finished it - I noticed the end of the clasp seemed a little wobbly. So I wiggled it. And it fell off.

Perfect. Epic Fail. Failing on so many levels.

If you bought some of these clasps and have had the same thing happen - let us know and we will fire off new ones to you directly. These are the 5-strand base metal clasps. It might just be the one I got, or we might have a bad batch.

BTW - it drapes ok on a gentle curve. Maybe I can incorporate it into a necklace? Except, I really wanted it to be a bracelet. A hot fiery explosion of dazzling colour. D4mn.

PS - I did remake this, and it's gorgeous. See it here.