Finally I’ve emerged from a drought of beading feeling refreshed and inspired, thanks to a friend who boldly said, “Would you be willing to show me your bead stash?” Funny how you don’t realize that the every day whirlwind of obligations can tend to bog you down with non-beady things such as laundry and yard work and birthday parties. The next thing you know you haven’t done anything to nurture your creative spirit in a long time. What a relief it is when someone unknowingly pulls you from the monotony of uncreative daily life!
 
My bead stash is a pretty private place that I protect like a pit bull from other beaders, simply because their drooling tends to make my beads soggy. Carefully hand selecting the beads, drops, crystals, pendants and other things that tickle my fancy has been a life time hobby. There are things in there that I’ve had since, well… nearly birth. So to let someone else peruse it is tough. But not impossible. So I opened it up and let her look. 
 
Watching her slobber from Swarovski to sapphire briolettes and back again made me realize that I had lost my beady enthusiasm as of late, and practically hadn’t realized it. When was the last time I beaded? Oh, no. Time to start a project. So I followed my friends lead and allowed myself to dribble over my own beads. And the whirlwind of ideas begin to build up momentum!
 
For some reason I have a pang for acorns, and this seemed like the right time to see what I could pull together using my stash as inspiration. Lo and behold, a quick dig into the surface of the stash brought about these sweet little acorns made by a friend of mine, CarolAnne Bouchles. She seed beaded delicate caps in size 15.0 around a beautiful oval shaped Lucite bead. I think they need to be earrings. Did you ever have some beading that needed to go on the ear, just because it needed its own showcase… and earrings can be viewed so easily by everyone since they’re right next to your face. And if you wear your hair up you can even see them from behind! 
 
So next I pulled out some giant Lucite rounds in a dark brown opaque color. These needed some sensational bead caps, in fact, they needed acorn caps! I got out my Dremmel drill and simply zipped a hole in a pair of pretty acorn caps I found in my Mom’s yard. And then using a piece of 22g wire, I strung the caps on either side of the bead. A simple loop at the end with a whipping, crazy twisting coil, I had attached my ‘corned centerpiece bead to a pretty, loopy chain. Simple. Remember the days of even, perfect coils? I’ve moved beyond them into the world of twisty, wrappy, crazy coils. They’re carefree and fun to do. Here’s how you do it: Wrap like nuts in every direction until you run out of wire. Huz-zah! Then take a bow. You’re a free spirited wire wrapper now. 
 
With all the mixed media at our fingertips, we vintage bead lovers can wire up just about anything together and it works, no? I dare say you can blindly reach into your own stash and pull out a handful of great treasure and wire it up together in the most interesting wrapped crazy coils, and you’d have a masterpiece! 
 
I was one of those careful wire wrappers until I bumped into Robin Dudley Howes, a fellow Californian beader, and saw her free-spirited approach to wire coils. Zip and whip, so to speak. And I love the look! Here is a couple of her earring designs so you can see what I mean. She’s inspirational to me! I think she gave me permission to live by the mantra of close-your-eyes-and–see-what-happens! Be brave and let go. Wish I’d had the courage to do that years ago. Never too late, they say.