I can't seem to stop!!!

I'm not OCD, really. But sometimes I get into this rut of making things over and over. And once I got the hang of it, I found I really enjoy making button clasps. This one is for a very simple necklace with picasso finish beads, that I also have a little obsession with.

To get it to lay right, I angled the clasp and eye pin ends upwards. It works pretty well. It just photographs ugly.

This necklace is heading off with me to art market tonight. We don't normally have a night market. But our first annivesary of this market opening last year happened to coincide with First Friday Art trail. So it's a bit of a celebration. I have loved this market and all of the wonderful people I've met there. It's kept me from being a complete and total hermit. So I'm off!

Have a great weekend!!!!

The idea

This is not my idea at all. Doing a button clasp in this style is completely inspired by Lorelei who did a kick butt video tutorial on making a button clasp. Unfortunately, I can' t for the life of me find the link to it right now. Anyways, when I was at the San Antonio bead show people asked me how to use buttons. Well describing it is a whole different ball game than doing it! I needed examples, I needed to do it, and really, truly humility kicks in. I have been so spoiled by all of you out there that have had such lovely vision of what my humble pieces can become.

One of the things I struggled with was that my clasp attempts wobbled in the button. I really wanted to have the eye and shephards hook to be very stable in the clasp. No wiggling, no wobbling. And that's where the light bulb flashed on. Wind a bit of small gauge wire back through the clasp and voila the clasp became very stable!

And the result is that this clasp looks a little like it has been sewn on. At least it does to me.

Bottom line is that for my next bead show, I am definitely going with examples of ways to work with my pieces. And I am very grateful to all of you who've shown me inspired ways to use my pieces.

Thank you!

Here it is! The link to Lorelei's button clasp tutorial.