Foot jewelry! (Or “barefoot sandals”, but for some reason that label bothers me, hehe!) How did this happen?!

My family and I went for a vacation down south to Oregon when I was younger, probably around six years old. Somewhere down there my mum bought this beautiful pair of foot jewelry, similar to the green pair I made in the picture above. I remember I used to think they were so pretty, and mum would just wear them around the house for no real particular reason at all, other than they were pretty.

I went to stay with Mum this past weekend and she dug them out and was going to give me. Her excuse was “Now at least you’ll be wearing something at Wreck Beach!” Har har. But then she stopped, looked at them, and said “You know, I bet you could make these.”

A couple trip to Michaels and a lot of money in initial supplies later, and I had the first six pairs in the next picture made in less than two evenings.

It was a total SBI (Spontaneous Burst of Insanity), I swear. I’ve never touched bead jewelry before (dozens of pony bead geckos when I was ten don’t count!), so all this was new. The wire, the clasps, the findings, the beads, the pliers, all of it. It was just one crazy idea that suddenly lead to members of my family wanting to buy them from me as gifts to their friends.

So, I guess I have a mini business going on?

These were the first two pairs I made. (Only one of each pair is shown in these photos to save space, but they’re pretty much identical.) The gold one has gold-coloured freshwater pearls in addition to the glass seed beads, a rectangular shaped glass bead above the pearl, two wooden accent beads on the “straps”, and metal spacers. I think the chain is just bronze patina’d stainless steel. The green set is similar, except the big green bead in the centre is aventurine (supposedly; not sure I trust random beads from Michaels). Anyway, I’m not going to be this detailed in describing each one, I promise. The gold pair was actually made with a good friend in mind as a recipient, but I’m not sure she’d like this sort of thing, so instead it’s going to the step-sister who ordered a bunch from me.

These ones are made of glass beads with metal spacers, pretty simple. The only difference between the first two and the rest are that these have wooden beads to cover where the toe-loop attaches to the main wire of the jewelry as opposed to glass ones. I found that trying to ream down the holes in the glass beads to make room for the metal loops of those spiral findings was destroying my cheap bead reamer, so I switched to more maleable wooden beads for the task. =) Oh, and these (as well as the rest) have silver-plated stainless steel chains and lobster-claw clasps as opposed to the bronze patina ones.

I actually really like the pink and gold one. Even though I’m not a “pink” person by any means, there’s something about the pink/gold colour combination and the design that I like a lot. I’ll be sad to let go of that one, though I’m sure I’ll make more similar ones with the beads I’ve got. (And there’s something that bugs me about the design of the red one, but I can’t put my finger on it.)

These were the last few I’ve made so far (excepting one green pair in similar design to the two blue ones; it was a gift for a good friend). And even though I really like the pink one, I think the purple one in the middle in this photo is my all-time favourite so far. It’s got a beautiful dark-purple amethyst bead as it’s centerpiece, and I love the look of those stainless steel spacers. It’s a shame I’m starting to run out of them, hehe! The only problem with the purple one is that the design runs a little high; it’s a little uncomfortable for me to wear since it sits so high on the top of my foot, it rubs a little. So it’ll probably have to go to somewhere with slightly bigger feet. Aww.

Eh, I’m learning stuff. The two blue ones were done because I was feeling I was getting too complex with my designs and wanted to simplify them. This design is indeed very simple, and pretty too. And they’re all comfortable to wear.

If you see something you like, I’m selling them for $20 CAD a pair*. (I expect I’ll have an Etsy shop up and running pretty soon.) All the ones in these photos are already sold, unfortunately, but I can always make something of a similar style. Colours are restricted to the ones you see here, since beads are expensive and I haven’t made enough of a profit on these to add more variety to my repertoire. Still, I think I’ve done well so far with what I’ve got!

I still can’t believe that I’ve been spending my weekend making these, though. I’m honestly not a fan of bead jewelry (I’ve always found them to be rather tacky), but there’s something about these “barefoot sandal” things that I really, really like, and that I find really beautiful. They’re comfortable to wear, and pretty too. They’re excellent to wear at the beach, and like my mum used to, they’re also nice to wear around the house/backyard, just for fun. But goodness, I never thought in my wildest dreams I’d be making them. Or that I’d make them without any help or instruction! It was really rather straightforward, actually, though I’m sure veteran beaders are cringing at my “technique”.

Anyway, I’m rambling. I just had to show off what I made before my mum takes them home to give to my step-sister who ordered five(!!) pairs. I’ll have to get busy making more.

I do have more arty stuff to show off, mainly just sketches and comics made with an awesome new friend, but I’ll get around to those eventually. I hope you find these pretty to look at, even if it’s not your thing. =)

_{* Price may change. Contact me for more accurate prices.}