Day 5 - Make a Bead Necklace

Date: January 11th, 2010

Today was all about lessons learned.  Those lessons include, but are not limited to the following:

- Plan more than a day in advance, even for the smaller tasks on the list.
- If someone doesn't answer their phone over the course of several hours, their event is probably cancelled.
- Have a back-up plan.
- Don't talk about the list to people unless it is 100% certain that the thing of the day is actually happening.

I mention those lessons because the people I talked to on the phone/online today will probably see the title and be surprised to see that it doesn't read "Learn Scottish Line Dancing".  That was totally the original plan.  It was listed as a public event on the Ann Arbor events calendar so I figured I'd pop out, learn some kickin' moves, grab a smoothie and call it a night.  No, seriously.  That was my plan.

Turns out I'm neither brave nor foolhardy enough to go walking down an unlit street to an unnumbered house with no cars parked out front in hopes of learning how to dance like a Scotsman.  Not gonna lie, I'm pretty sure its that kind of intuition that makes me law school material.   ...anyway...

It was 8PM before I realized that my thing for the day didn't happen.  No back up plan.  No supplies bought for another option.  No one standing by to come teach me judo or something.  Nothing.  Wanna know my solution?  It was sheer and utter idiocy.

My exact thought: "I'll just drive around until something interesting happens."

THAT WAS PLAN B.  Yeah.

After about 45 minutes of driving around Ann Arbor, looking at shop windows and thinking to myself "is there anything in there I haven't done before?", I ended up in a parking lot with a Chuck E Cheese, a Pet Smart, a Target and a Jo-Ann Fabrics.  It definitely could've been a worse selection.  I'd have assumed God was mocking me if, in answer to "help me find something I've never done before", I ended up in the parking lot of Lover's Lane or something.  Just saying.

I wandered aimlessly around Jo-Ann Fabrics for about 30 minutes.  After a while I called my mom for some much needed assistance.  She helpfully pointed out that I had never done a paint-by-numbers that she knew of.  Just so we're clear.  I have never done a paint-by-numbers.  I have ridden a camel.  I have not done a paint-by-numbers.

Been there, done that.

Not so much.

I'm saving paint-by-numbers for finals, by the way.  I know there'll be a day where I'm cramming for exams and I just won't want to do my thing of the day so I'm saving my cop-outs for that time of year.

Instead I went with jewelry making.  Specifically, making a bead necklace.  Pictures of the process are below.

See that book?  Its how I worked my magic.

My first attempt at attaching clasps to leather.  I'd say it worked well.

It seemed like a bit of a cop-out to just throw a single bead on a leather strap and call it a necklace.  That was, however, my original plan.  Partly out of annoyance and partly out of being tired from driving around for an hour.  I decided I had to put at least a modicum of craftsmanship into it though.  So I put the bead on and fixed it in place with two small gold bearings.  They're usually used as part of a clasp attachment -they interlock.  They were just right for securing the bead though.

Best.  Bead. Ever.

The finished product is simple, but its something I could see being sold in a store.  Well, the design at least.  I took needle-nose pliers to a couple pieces of metal and a leather cord.  I did it, ya know, with fervor, but still.

^Wearable^

See?  Wearable.

All in all I'm going to call today a success.  I didn't get to do what I planned on doing, but I got a bit of a karmic kick to the head about making sure I do what I need to if I want to succeed at this thing.  If you look at the first couple pictures you may notice that is a calendar.  That's because I decided to leave less to chance and luck.  I mean, heck, we established a couple days ago that I'm a reap-what-I-sow person, not a luck person.

Plus, I really do like the necklace.