How to say you care

Like many people, there are times when I'm lousy at keeping in contact with people. I'm not very good with keeping birthdays either. I tend to miss birthday, but occasionally give random gifts to people, because it occurs to me to make something they might like.

On this occasion, I made a Tree of Life pendant, using this tutorial, from Miscellanea Etcetera.


I used a 1mm gold wire for the outline, and 0.6mm gold wire for the branches. In hindsight, this was a little too thick for my inexperienced fingers to manipulate easily, but it still came out well I think. The stones I used were amethyst, rose quartz and mother of pearl chips.


Now, I'm a bit of a perfectionist at the best of times, but the lack of a perfect circle in the finished pendant above? Doesn't actually bother me. There was something so wonderfully relaxing about this project, it didn't feel like it could go wrong, every chip placed was where it was supposed to be, and no other pendant ('cos I'm sitting on a few more ideas) will ever be the same as this one. And that's wonderful.


But this was the first, and this one was made with a special person in mind. To let them know how much they mean to me, and how much I've been thinking of them, even if I haven't been in contact.

I actually delivered this pendant in person today, an extra touch I wasn't expecting. I didn't say all that I could have said; there was other company present, and the words probably would have gotten caught at my teeth anyway. But I think its new owner likes it, and maybe it, with this post, has said what I couldn't say out loud.