Be My Valentine

I've spent this uber awful icy/rainy morning with a few cups of coffee, and pinterest. It's Monday - I refuse to go outside, and I needed some inspiration on what to make the girls for Valentines day presents. I've created a board - Be My Valentine. I hope it inspires you!

This week, I thought I'd share a project that Dwyn made a while back. (last year or the year before that) You may remember Brave Heart - this was one of the projects that she created for Swarovski in Tucson.

For this year, at Tucson, we were very pleased to be one of the sponsors for the Swarovski Sparkling Make and Take - a fund-raiser for the local YWCA. 

This entailed designing a project featuring Swarovski crystals (such a hardship!), - something that could be made by a complete novice in under an hour - rather more of a challenge - getting the ok from Swarovski, purchasing all the components (ok - seriously - why is it every single time I design a kit - a key element has been discontinued???? Hmmmm?), assembling said kits, and shipping them ahead. 

I think there was some criteria about a price limit too - but as we were donating everything (along with John Bead - our co-sponsor) - we just ignored that. 

The end result was this series of Crystal Explosion pendants. We got a tonne of great feedback about these - everyone seemed to adore them - so we are publishing them here for you. We actually do expect to get some kits put together again, but here is the component list, and the instructions. 

And seriously - you can make it in under an hour. You need to review the "rapid loops" technique - which I pretty much had to invent in order to make all the samples to be shipped to Swarovski the next day. Necessity is the mother of invention all right. 

To make. 

Divide your headpins into two equal piles of 25. 

Divide the daisy spacers into 2 piles.

Take half of the headpins, and thread 2 beads on each. Use up the one pile of daisy spacers as the first item on the headpin (then add the two beads - the daisy spacer doesn't count as a bead for this project.)

Then do the same to the other pile of headpins, except make those with 3 beads. 

Left over beads can be added so that you have some headpins with 4 beads. And you should shorten a couple to just 1 bead. 

Now do the Rapid Loops for all them - giving you 50 dangles of varying lengths. Trim the wire ends. 

Use the Artistic Wire to create a wrapped loop for the Wild Heart. 

Thread the Wild Heart onto the Softflex, and then string the dangles on both sides, in random order, but putting the ones with the daisy spacers closest to the Heart. (The photo that illustrates this shows the Berry Surprise project - but the idea is the same.)

When they are all strung on, tie the two ends of the Softflex together, so you are knotting the strand into a big circle. Add the Link (Circle Ring) and knot again inside the link. So you have a circle of the Softflex, with all the beads on it, with the Heart on the bottom, and opposite the heart, there is a knot, and the link, and then knot inside the link. 

Then, using the link, hang on a chain, necklace, silk rattail, what have you. We used the silk rattail. 

That's it! Crystal Explosion!