Christmas Jewelry with Vintage Sheet Music

As a handcrafted business, we are always experimenting with new ideas.  One of the things we're working on this year are bookmarks...for good old fashioned hard copy books.  We read a lot that people think paper books are on the way out, and it makes sense environmentally to produce less in the way of material objects like books.  However, we believe there will always be people who want to hold a book in their hands to read, like to wander through actual bookstores, and there will always be the books already printed.  So, we have enjoyed experimenting with fun Scrabble tile bookmarks.  Next time, we will show you what we have come up with.

For this post, we wanted to share an idea that we worked on the last couple of years and with the Christmas holidays right around the corner, it seemed like a good time to share these.

We use vintage sheet music that is no longer useable due to missing pages, torn, etc. and create Scrabble bracelets out of them.  Sometimes, we make inspirational bracelets that are faith-based, others are just inspirational with words like smile, dance, and play.

The ones were going to focus on today are Christmas song bracelets.  They are so fun!

We use vintage songs that are Christmas carols.  So far for this year we've made three.  We hope to make more, but they are a little more time-consuming because we have to look through all our old music books.


Here are the three we've made so far:

Jingle Bells Christmas Bracelet

This is a Jingle Bells bracelet.  The tiles on the inside spell: WHAT FUN

Santa's Reindeer Christmas Bracelet

 This is a Santa Claus Reindeer Scrabble Bracelet.  It has all the reindeer on the music (except Rudolph).  The inside spells:  DASH AWAY

Christmas Carol Lyric Bracelet

This is the classic Christmas carol lyrics that read, "Peace on Earth.  Good will to men."  This one spells: REJOICE

Just a fun idea for that old sheet music!

Bookmarks next time...

CHRISTMAS PRESENTS GALORE

We have continued to work hard to build our inventory in order to provide a plentiful selection of Christmas presents.  I know as the holiday season starts to rev-up, the Scrabble bracelets and frames on our shelves will quickly diminish.  That's good.  We want them to sell - of course, but then comes the pressure to try to keep up with replacing items that are sold out.  I need to just take a deep breath and do the best I can.  Get the most popular back on as soon as I can and go from there.  We still don't have as many items as I had hoped for this year, but...

..this has been such a crazy year!  It has been difficult to keep everything in order with moving, fixing the house and keeping the business up and running and running well.  Additionally, I have wanted to live a more balanced life, but I also know that the holiday season is probably not a good time to try to read and walk several times a day, keep up with household chores, call friends and family to chat, and start a new exercise program.  Might be a bit much.  

However, I am still trying to find a little balance.  My non-handcrafted business time is basically spent on household chores.  That's okay for now.  We try to watch some funny shows and movies in the evening to alleviate some of the stress and intense focus we experience during the day.  The Big Bang Theory is one of our favorites.  Here is a short clip from the show.  If you haven't had a chance to watch the show, it's hilarious.   

The new year will allow us to take stock, plan for the upcoming year and thankfully, we won't be moving next year!!  Yippee!!

A quick note about the supplier issue I talked about last time.  (Do other people have these same issues?  Sometimes, when things go awry, I wonder if this is the right thing for me to be doing.  I love making the jewelry and frames, but sometimes it is sooooooo frustrating.)  At any rate, I have now ordered from several different suppliers to see how their seal works.  Meanwhile, our good seal is quickly running out.  Not a great time of year for that to happen, but I will just take a deep breath and do the best I can (my current phrase of choice).

So, I thought I'd share some of our Christmas jewelry and I just finished a couple of our Santa art frames.  We put the frames up each year around our house with family pictures and pet photos.  Fun and colorful.  

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer Bracelet

Hark the Herald Angels Sing Music Scrabble Bracelet

Vintage Santa Art Bracelet

Nativity Scrabble Bracelet

Snowman Pendant

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer Pendant Set

Vintage Santa Art Frame

  

Lazy, Hazy Days of Summer - I Don't Think So

Santa Scrabble Bracelet

Our days are pretty crazy.  You would think we’d be into the lazy, hazy days of summer.  Well, there is no time to be lazy - as anyone who has started a business knows – especially a handcrafted business.  We’re trying to get ahead for the holiday season by not only making our regular line of items, but by creating new items whenever we can and of course adding Christmas jewelry and Halloween Jewelry.  Oh, my!

Australian Cattle Dog Scrabble Bracelet

 Our days generally start at about 4:00 in the morning, and I am writing this at 9:00 in the evening – long days.  As I said in my last posting, I try to take a day off now and then, just to refresh myself and find some balance.  Thankfully, I enjoy what I do, but it is a lot of work and very time / labor intensive - especially our Scrabble Bracelets!  We have bracelets just for dog lovers and all kinds of Scrabble bracelets with different themes.  I love how the bracelets look when they are done.  I love trips to the bead store.  I love the feedback we get about them.  But…boy, are they work.  We even spell different things on the inside of each bracelet.  Scrabble pendants may be a better way to go for mass production because they are not as labor intensive and do not have as many steps as the bracelets, and we do make some of those as well, but we love the bracelets!  So, we do what we can.

My husband hand drills all the tiles.  It was quite the process figuring out the best way to do that with no poked fingers, broken Scrabble tiles or burning wood.  He also does the finishing work of tying and trimming.  He has worked to perfect his “trick” to making the elastic stay without coming untied, etc.  The rest is up to me.  We make a good team really.

Woodstock Bands Scrabble Bracelet

Well, my day has come to an end.  4:00 am comes mighty early, so I best be off to sleep.  Who knows what wonderful new Scrabble Art design I may dream about...