Fourth of July and Family Reunion!!

I know, I know, I'm late in wishing everyone a happy Fourth of July but I have a very good reason. You see, I've been extremely busy. I'm going to reveal a little something about myself ~ I'm a chronic procrastinator. No, I'm not proud of that, but when you find out what I've been doing, you'll see why I'm so late with my July 4th wishes.

My father's side of the family has a family reunion every Fourth of July (well, we just kinda barge in since my part of the family is really a brother of the person the reunion is named after - but if we know there's gonna be good food and we can somehow get invited, we're there)!

Anyway, this was a special reunion ~ the 100th consecutive year it has been held!!! 100 years!!! Can you believe that?

For such a special occasion, I decided to decorate the closest of my female relatives with special necklaces. That's where the procrastination comes in. I've had the idea rolling around my head for several months. I knew I wanted to make something with pictures, and I knew I wanted a necklace with some embellishments such as beads and a patriotic theme.

These pictures are of my parents, grandparents and great grand parents ~ don't you just love those old, old pictures? I just don't understand why nobody ever smiled way back then?!?

Well, I made a list of my closest female relatives and tallied up the number of necklaces I would need to make ~ a total of 15 (including myself, of course). Whew, so I did some more tallying and when I multiplied the number of photo charms per necklace by the number of necklaces - well, that was pretty ambitious! Especially when there's only 2 weeks before the reunion!! I began gathering my materials, cutting the glass, amassing the pictures I would use and, of course, not allowing myself enough time for any glitches. But, I actually got all the necklaces made, put them in pretty little boxes and even had time to make patriotic tags for each little box.

Here's the front and back of the final product!

Of course, some of the necklaces had different pictures, but you get the general idea. They were a big, big hit!

So, now that the Fourth and the reunion is over (we're still rubbing our pudgy little bellies from all those great homemade goodies), and now that I've had a little rest, I'll start working on my next project(s). I'll be taking new pictures and posting more jewelry in my Etsy shop and I also plan to fine tune my "How to Make Broken China Jewelry" e-book and get it posted. Keep watching here so you'll know when I post the new e-book and jewelry!