A hello and a "metal" necklace how-to

Happy Saturday to you!




Try not to faint as you see there's a new post. A lot has been going on and this poor blog has been so, so neglected. I had some people recently tell me they missed my posts and then I got a message via Etsy (Hi, Mary!) saying she'd read my whole blog and I thought...holy cow I haven't written anything in a long time! So you all can thank Mary for making me post something.
I admit a lot of my lackadaisical approach to blogging has to do with all the changes to blogger. I worked so hard to learn all the tricks and now everything is different and it gets exhausting; I am no computer genius.

Halloween has come and gone and I thought I would share his year's "costume." I don't care how old I get, I will absolutely grasp at any opportunity to "dress up," however, I work in an office and my costumes have to be fairly subtle.

Last year I was the Doctor from Doctor Who and this year I decided to be Sherlock. So two years in a row I've dressed as a British man. I'm not sure what to say about that.

For Christmas last year a friend bought me a "detective hat" and I bought myself a blue Pashmina style scarf which I believed was essential to the BBC Sherlock look but I knew the two elements together wouldn't necessarily scream Sherlock (I did look a bit Dickensian to be honest) so I decided to make a necklace to try and pull the look together.




Here was the final outcome. My coworkers exclaimed over the fact that I'd made it and that it looked like "real metal" which I'm taking as a good thing?

What you'll need:



Black paper (a sizeable scrap will do)
Metallic letter stickers
Small, sharp scissors
Tweezers
Two pair pliers
Chain
Metal jewelry frame (not shown)

The metal frame comes as the metal edging with two slides of glass. It has a hinge of sorts and you open it to removed the glass slides and can place whatever you like inside. I first cut my paper to fit the slides and then made sure I had enough room for my stickers. I would almost suggest waiting to cut the paper after you've placed the stickers on it, and then you can use the slides as a guide and make sure your design is centered. I ended up having to cut mine and placing a secondary piece of paper behind to frame it.

Cut your letter stickers out with the scissors and make sure you have enough room for them all. The frames come in a variety of shapes and metallic finishes so pick what will work best for your project.

I then peeled the stickers from their paper using the tweezers and was able to line them up and lay them down easily using the fine point.

Trim your paper as necessary, and place between the two glass slides and put back into the frame and close the hinge.

If you don't have unsoldered chain you will need wire cutters and some jump rings to connect the chain, but my chain was unsoldered so I was able to simply open the links and attach directly to the frame loop. My biggest pet peeve about "gold" jewelry supplies is that none of it matches which is why it is so rare to see anything of gold tones in my Etsy shop. I don't think it was too noticeable but I knew it didn't match perfectly.

And you're done! Talk about a simple project!

I did have a person ask me if there was significance to the numbers on my necklace. It was almost as depressing as the time I asked a library assistant for help and she didn't know who or what Jane Eyre was. Argh.

If you haven't seen BBC's Sherlock I highly recommend it. I believe they are on Netflix...
The Basil Rathbone films of Sherlock Holmes are also good.
I liked the Robert Downey Jr. version, but the sequel I did not enjoy as much.
And of course there's The Great Mouse Detective, an animated feature that is one of my favorites as well.

I've been reading the stories but am only 3 or 4 in so far. Have you read/watched any? What are your favorites?