Ol' Squeak Foot They Used to Call Her

Since I treated myself to some new clothes earlier this week, it was time to dig out some of my cute spring shoes that I haven't worn since last year to go with them. I've got on a really cute pair of Etienne Aigner slides and I'm walking around in them and all of a sudden I realize that every time my right foot hits the ground, that shoe is making a "SQUEAK!" noise.

So, now, when I walk, it's like "Squeak. Pause. Squeak. Pause. Squeak. Pause."

WTF?

Seriously? How does a shoe that was perfectly fine a year ago and hasn't been worn since then suddenly develop a squeak? Actually, are shoes even prone to squeaking? Is this some kind of new cosmic shoe squeak phenomenon? Because it's never happened to me before. And if it had - I'd expect it to happen with my cheap-ass Payless shoes and not my good Etienne Aigner shoes.

Now, I realize that there are more important problems in the world than a squeaky shoe. But those problems are not, at this moment, causing me intense public embarrassment so I really don't care about them right now, do I? No, I don't. I care about the fact that I can no longer sneak around life without being heard coming from a mile away.

Hey, I'm incredibly shy. Stealth is a LIFE SKILL for me.

And this shoe is blowin' it for me big time. So much for my dream of being recruited by the CIA. Seriously, I always thought I'd make a great spy - who would ever suspect the fat mom in her stained sweats, no makeup and her hair up in a butterfly clip? No one. That's who.

See what you have done, squeaky shoe? You have RUINED MY DREAM.

I see I shall have to fall back on my secondary career where I pretend that the girl who failed 7th grade art class can be a bead and jewelry artist:

The one piece that came out fabulously well...and I forgot to post it yesterday LOL! Oh, and love how I captured the water spots on the piece of plastic that I used to prop up this pendant for photo-taking purposes.

I am an excellent dishwasher (not).

But wait, there's more.

Okay - who just rolled their eyes? Y'know, as soon as I get rid of this squeaky shoe, I will be stealthy again and you never know when I might sneak up on you and...so, anyway, enough with the eye rolling!

With much purchasing from the amazingness that is Missficklemedia's great stuff on Etsy, I found all the right pieces to go with one of my resin bezels and created this:

My "Star Lover" necklace started with that hand-crafted resin bezel in the middle. I made it using some of my own art paper from back in my rubber stamping days, added a punched out silver metallic heart, a scrap of paper with the word "L'etoile" on it (that's French for "star" in case y'all didn't know) and a scattering of pink glitter bead embellishment and then I resined all that onto a Patina Queen brass bezel.

Then I came across this solid yellow saffron-patinated star charm on Shannon's site and I thought "hmmm...that looks like it would exactly match that resin piece I just created."

And y'all know how I am with the matchingness. It makes my soul sing.

But then I decided I needed MORE yellow starryness and Shannon was kind enough to work with me on ideas and after some finagling around and trying stuff and convo'ing back and forth, I ended up with these gorgeous filigree stars which she patinated to match the solid star.

How awesome are these filigree stars?

Shannon also had these great saffron rings AND a matching section of chain (again with the matchingess...I am in matchy matchy HEAVEN). AND...this set of lampwork beads from BeeBoo happened to randomly arrive in the middle of this and lo and behold they ALSO matched the color palette so in they went.

Then some brass chain and a hook clasp to finish off the back.

Eh, voila! My "Star Lover" necklace is basically done. I'm still fiddling with the arrangement on the left side because it doesn't feel quite balanced yet, but I think I just need to move a couple of things around or possible added a second strand there and it will be perfection.

Back tomorrow with this week's installment of Bead Porn. You will know it is coming when you hear the SQUEAK!

KJ