Sew MankyCat: Fried Marbles

I've started a couple new projects... Surprise, surprise! For now, I'm going to talk about...

Fried Marbles.

This is a new passion that started me on the path of actual jewelry making. I mean, I've made jewelry before, but not like I do now. I started this trek back in July and find myself semi-addicted.

What started this? I went to an Amish Market/Flea Market with my mother, husband, children, nieces, step-nieces, and older sister. I had an odd feeling to look for "something". I get these little feelings every now and again, and usually it leads me to something that I find quite intriguing or beautiful each time, which then starts some new journey for me. Is this intuition? Maybe. Luck? Possibly. But it happened enough in the past that my husband doesn't question me or give me a hard time. To the contrary, he actually enourages me to pursue whatever is causing that feeling for me.

So as we are walking through the market, perusing the wares from different sellers, I came upon these...

They were exactly what I was looking for! They actually reminded me of something from my past. Flashback: There was this boy I met while I was in 5th grade. He and I became close friends quickly and met every morning in the halls before class started, sat together in chorus, and hung out after school sometimes. We used to talk on the phone often and I got well acquainted with his parents as well. Each birthday and Christmas, we gave eachother gifts. I still have those gifts, though I don't know if he does. Towards the end of our friendship, he told me how he still had them on a special shelf in his bedroom. I was flattered, though at the time I didn't realize the importance of such a confession. One year, he asked me what I wanted for Christmas, and I said, "I want a bubble that will never break." From then on, I still held to that desire... to find a bubble that will never break; it's fragile beauty maintained without fear of being lost. These little marbles and pendants reminded me of this and I had to have one!

Little did I realize that one of the people selling these was an ex-coworker of my husband's (one that he's mentioned a number of times, so name recognition was immediate). My husband and his ex-coworker talked for a while as I nearly drooled on the table in sparkly, glassy loveliness. I searched out the perfect ones to buy... (I ended up with three pendants, one set of earrings, and bought my nieces one item each. My sister didn't want me to buy my step-nieces some, so I respected her wishes on it.)

More importantly... I found something deeper. I found inspiration.

I started researching how to make them. That same weekend, I bought marbles (medium flat ones and small round ones, and also had a few I saved from other uses years ago) and started testing different methods. Back and forth I went, reading experiences of others, testing them out, and going back to find more experiences to try. To be honest, I'm still testing what methods I like best for what purposes, but I'm definitely much further along than I was when I started. My husband also seemed to enjoy the process of helping me come up with ideas on better techniques and after a couple weeks, I showed my nieces and nephew how to do it (giving them each one medium clear round marble and one small round yellow one that they fried and cracked).

And then, I picked up more supplies and started making some of them into jewelry. I wore a few pieces, gave a couple away (to be tested and reviewed by some friends) and made a few as gifts, and sold a few as well. To see more examples of what I've been making go to my Facebook Page: CLICK HERE. Whenever I wear the ones I've decided to keep, I get compliments, and the people who have bought some from me (and my testers as well) urged me to put some up on Etsy. (My store is Noblesse Excentrique, my user name is mankycat. Click here to go to the store.)

Here are some examples: