Over four years ago, when I was making Zinnia Pascale’s decora outfit, I added some bracelets made of seed beads on clear elastic thread. Their multicolored glitteriness added just the right touch of tackiness to the outfit, as you can see on Frank here.

When I undressed Zinnia Pascale and put her up for sale [gasp!], I retained her clothes and her jewelry. I started admiring it and recently came to the conclusion that, if six bracelets of multicolored glittery beads looked awesome, more of the same would look even awesomer! I had gotten rid of my original beads and elastic in the intervening years, so I set out to find replacements.

First, I got some 0.7mm elastic cord, which seemed about the right diameter. Then, without the cord in hand or an example bracelet, I went to find a pack of multicolored seed beads. 10/0s looked about right, so I got some of those.

Looking at the beads and the cord together, I discovered my mistakes. I immediately noticed that 0.7mm cord was much too fat for 10/0s. I then noticed that 10/0s were way too small for my purposes. I got a headache just looking at them and decided that I would never enter beading arts with such minuscule supplies.

Today I hit the craft store again with an example bracelet in hand. A sales person helped me find beads in a matching size, which were 6/0s. [Incidentally, they were on the hook right next to the 10/0s! :p ] I also got 0.5mm elastic, just in case the 0.7mm was too fat.

I tried again to make tacky jewelry for my dolls. The 0.7mm proved too slippery to knot, so I switched to the 0.5mm, which worked well for one bracelet. Then it started misbehaving, flinging the beads everywhere. My fingers were starting to hurt [and I was starting to call the beads "little fuckers"], so I wisely elected to defer this craft until I have more patience and also natural light [kept losing beads under my desk].

I’m also going to get some clear nail polish [as recommended on the back of the elastic packages] to seal my knots.

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