I gave my friend Janet this beaded ornament several years ago, and a few years ago she gave it back. No, this wasn't some Christmas prank. The ornament had fallen off the tree, shattered, and cut the thread, sending seed beads everywhere. Luckily, she taped the loose thread ends to avoid future bead loss and returned it to me with a very sad expression on her face, hoping I could do some repairs. So I did, restringing a portion of the ornament last night. Amazingly, I had identical seed beads to replace the lost ones. See, I really enjoyed making these ornaments, so I bought several hanks of different colored seed beads so I could make more of them. By the way, the instructions are from Bead&Button's December 1998 issue, and though the issue is out of print, you can purchase and download the instructions online (and they're half-price, $1.95, until January 2, 2009, as are all of the PDFs from BeadStyle, Bead&Button, and Art Jewelry magazines, so check it out).

This time I glued the top on, as the top came off and the ornament crashed down last time. But it's good as new now, so I'll be giving it to her again this year, along with an IOU for a summer-themed door decoration. That's what she asked for, so we'll have to have a chat about whether that's a wreath, an appliqued door dec, or something else. One less project to worry about creating in the next 24 hours!