Day 157 - Stringing up justification

One of my lesser known skill sets it providing justification and rationale for things that are probably absurd and nonsensical, but you won't hear me admitting that.

Yesterday my mom told a story about moving a basket of laundry over a period of several years, to several different houses because it needed to be ironed.  She finally got rid of the entire basket of clothes, since she hadn't worn them or ironed them.

It got me thinking about the things I have hanging around the house, that once packed, or stowed away are not going to get fixed, mended, repaired; time passes and priorities shift and then it's two years later and there is a big old mess that you still haven't dealt with. So instead of moving around my metaphorical basket of ironing, I decided I would either need to get rid of it, or fix it. And when would be a better time to embark on this project than 4 days before I am supposed to move?

And, if my mom's story wasn't justification enough, I just read this great article about
60 ways to improve your life in small ways and one of the 60 things was to fix or repair something around the house each day, and today seemed like a great day to start...

And, if that's wasn't enough, I found the materials for this project while packing...

And, while I have been taking photos each day, I haven't been posting to my blog each day, so I needed to get back on track with that too...

Yea, see.  I have really important things to do instead of packing... things like repairing jewelry...

I got this bracelet almost 10 years ago, but only started wearing it about 4 years ago. Since then, it has become my favorite bracelet and I have repaired it twice, and lost and found it once. So of course I needed to fix it when it broke again!

Here's the original, and sadly the clasp broke.  I tried to fix the clasp, but then I decided to just buy a new beaded bracelet and transfer the charm.


Aside: Shortly after that, I managed to lose the bracelet at my cousin's wedding. Well, I thought I lost it for about 6 months, until I had a dream that it was in the lining of my jewelry bag. When I woke up I found it,  right in the lining of my jewelry bag...creepy huh?

So, I transferred the charm to a new bracelet, but I wore it so much that the wire broke, and last summer I had to restring the bracelet.

And then a few weeks ago, the toggle broke free from the wire, so I had to restring the entire bracelet again tonight. Please note: My stringing skills were sound, as the wire did not break this time!

 While stringing beads and crimping wires, I remembered that one of my favorite necklaces had come apart a few months ago, so tonight seemed like a good time to fix that too.

See! It's wearable now!!

And I was so excited about fixing the necklace that I decided to fix the bracelet I had floating around at the bottom of my purse that had lost its charm, but not its appeal... haha. So, I dug around in my jewelry box and decided to  add a "B" I had.

While digging in the jewelry box, I found an earring I love, but lost the mate for. I got it 10 years ago in Laguna Beach and have tried to find the glass artist ever since then, but haven't had any luck.

But, I thought it would be cute to add the glass bead from the earring to another bracelet that kept breaking as well.  So I fixed the clasp and then added the bead to this bracelet.








So, just to recap. I didn't get any packing done tonight, but I did repair, or redesign 3 bracelets and a necklace. Not bad for a night's work!