Embellishments

We went to the last of our local village fetes yesterday, and as usual I went round the stalls with an eye for anything cheap that might come in useful for my creativity (polite-speak for any old rubbish people don't want any more!) - and as I've found on many occasions, what is rubbish to one person is a treasure to the next. There were also a few craft stalls with people selling things they'd made, or had bought in (I bought myself a very nice African necklace with beads made of discs cut from ostrich egg shells lol!), and amongst the cheaper things they were selling were some bracelets made of beads strung on elastic. Very pretty, but always much too small for my big wrists!

I bought a couple of these, and then some strings of beads and shells, and some more bracelets on the bric-a-brac. I also found 2 gorgeous old wooden rulers and snapped those up at once - I've seen these vintage items used in Tim-style crafts as embellishments and thought I could do the same. At 10p each, who's going to complain?

Here's a picture of the glorious jumble of goodies I bought, prior to my taking them apart and sorting them away safely arranged by colour.

Charity shops and market stalls are also good places to look out for stuff like this. Lots of necklaces are pretty boring and wouldn't draw a second glance, but the individual beads can be quite attractive, and as decorations together with fibres and ribbons on tags etc., they would gain new life as objects of beauty!