Jewelry--it all started with a rat in my dresser

[eridani]

After a week or so of keeping the door to the bedroom always shut, and rat poison readily available, it finally succumbed (thankfully in a drawer where we could get at it and not behind a wall somewhere), but not until it had chewed on some of my non-metal jewelry. This necessitated a major cleanup operation, during which I discovered a number of pieces that had been sitting around for many years on deteriorating thongs.

So I looked at my sister-in-law's Fire Mountain bead catalog, and ordered some items to rework the old stuff. Then I started getting the sale notices, and thought wotthehell, why not try making some new stuff?

I'm using regular beads with beading thread and wire, macrame, polymer clay, wire work, acrylic resin, leather, origami paper and that fake dichroic glass resin (which, contrary to advertising, looks nothing like the real thing, although you can get some interesting effects with it). I see a few glassworkers in the group--maybe they'd be willing to cut their DU pals a good deal on focal pieces occasionally?

After a career as a chemist that will come to an end with retirement in a few years, I have come around to understanding why I never went for the management track--I just have never been able to get too far away from doing things with my own hands. Pursuing this craft into retirement will help fill that need, though I'm going to have to brush up on my inorganic knowledge.