ladysprite (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ladysprite) wrote2010-10-02 08:42 pm
ladysprite) wrote2010-10-02 08:42 pm
Little Things
Many many years ago, back at the Sterling Forest Renaissance Faire, there was a booth that sold hair jewelry. They would put in standard hair wraps - wrap a bit of your hair with colorful cord - but then they'd somehow fix a little lobster claw onto the bottom, and sell beautiful charms and dangles and stranded beads and suchlike to clip into it. It meant having a little bit of my hair cut short, and over a couple of months the wrapping cord would get dingy from washing, but I loved it.
Unfortunately, I haven't found anyone who would do this for the past ten years or more, and my collection of hair jewelry has been sitting in my jewelry box, taunting me as it gathers dust.
Today, at the Topsfield Fair (a huge, fantabulously fun county fair full of parading Mounties and deep-fried Oreos and thousand-pound pumpkins and other delights) I saw a stall offering hair wraps, and decided to ask if they knew how to work in lobster claws. They didn't have any, it turned out, but they suggested wrapping in a charm with a loop at the bottom, and then putting a lobster claw on the jewelry bits at home. And they asked me if I wanted a wrap, or just a braid.
A braid? How so, I asked the woman running the stall. And she pulled her own hair forward to show me - braid a little bit of pretty metallic thread into the hair, and at the bottom just thread on some beads, attach the charm at the end, and then use the end of the thread as a decorative wrap that secures the charm on. And, looking at it (and at her prices) I realized.....
I could do this myself.
In fact, I have absolutely no idea why I didn't think of this before, given that I already have pony beads to braid into my hair at home. I just never extrapolated to lacing the lobster claw on myself. And I can do it with scrap thread and jewelry bits I already own, instead of paying someone else upwards of $20.
So now I have a tiny braid behind my left ear, threaded with silvery-teal metallic cord and tipped with pearly white beads and a little silver lobster claw. It's not perfect, but I figure over time I'll learn how to tighten the tip of the braid and hide it better under or inside the beads. I can hide it easily enough at work, and best of all, I can finally start wearing my beloved hair jewels again... and now that I know how to do it myself, I won't have to wait years between episodes of having it done!
Unfortunately, I haven't found anyone who would do this for the past ten years or more, and my collection of hair jewelry has been sitting in my jewelry box, taunting me as it gathers dust.
Today, at the Topsfield Fair (a huge, fantabulously fun county fair full of parading Mounties and deep-fried Oreos and thousand-pound pumpkins and other delights) I saw a stall offering hair wraps, and decided to ask if they knew how to work in lobster claws. They didn't have any, it turned out, but they suggested wrapping in a charm with a loop at the bottom, and then putting a lobster claw on the jewelry bits at home. And they asked me if I wanted a wrap, or just a braid.
A braid? How so, I asked the woman running the stall. And she pulled her own hair forward to show me - braid a little bit of pretty metallic thread into the hair, and at the bottom just thread on some beads, attach the charm at the end, and then use the end of the thread as a decorative wrap that secures the charm on. And, looking at it (and at her prices) I realized.....
I could do this myself.
In fact, I have absolutely no idea why I didn't think of this before, given that I already have pony beads to braid into my hair at home. I just never extrapolated to lacing the lobster claw on myself. And I can do it with scrap thread and jewelry bits I already own, instead of paying someone else upwards of $20.
So now I have a tiny braid behind my left ear, threaded with silvery-teal metallic cord and tipped with pearly white beads and a little silver lobster claw. It's not perfect, but I figure over time I'll learn how to tighten the tip of the braid and hide it better under or inside the beads. I can hide it easily enough at work, and best of all, I can finally start wearing my beloved hair jewels again... and now that I know how to do it myself, I won't have to wait years between episodes of having it done!