Marble Tulle Necklace

I love this kind of necklace and I've been wanting to make it for a while now, but finding black tulle is harder than it seems. I finally tracked some down at a Hobby Lobby. Success.

Materials
- Tulle. I chose black. Choose any color you'd like. I started with about 5 feet of tulle and it made a necklace about 3 feet long.  Of course, you can make yours as long as you'd like.
- Black thread and a needle or a sewing machine. I used my machine, but a needle and thread would work too, it would just take longer.
- Marbles. I chose clear, but, again, you can choose any color you can find.
- A safety pin and scissors.

Fold the tulle in half and sew near the folded edge. I sewed mine about 7/8" from the edge, but it would depend on the size of your marbles. My marbles are about 1/2" in diameter. Choose smaller marbles and sew closer, choose bigger ones and sew farther from the edge.

Like I said, I sewed mine on my machine, but a needle and thread would would just as well. Just keep the stitches tight and neat.

Trim away the excess. I left about an 1/8" of tulle, just enough to make sure the thread stays in place.

To turn the tube inside out, pin one end with a safety pin and feed it back through the tulle tube.

As you feed the safety pin down the tube, the pinned end will follow and it will double up with one layer inside the other.

Pull the safety pin out the opposite end and slide the fabric all the way down until it's completely reversed and then take out the pin.

Put a knot in the tulle and slide a marble down the tube until it reaches the knot.

Add another knot and another marble. Continue this pattern until the necklace is as long as you'd like, ending with a knot to secure the last marble. Leaving enough to tie the necklace together, cut away any excess tulle.
In this picture you can see the black thread cut right across the two right marbles. It's a pretty faint line and while wearing it, it's basically invisible.

I took some extra tulle and added a bow over the final knot, but I could've tied the knot and cut away the extra tulle or created a tulle flower to add there.

Something like this? (I didn't make those, but maybe I'll try.)

The grand total for my necklace came to $4.98 plus tax. I have yards of tulle left over (never a problem for me) and enough marbles to make another necklace. I love cheap crafts. :)

Go Ahead and Judge a Book by its Cover

My friend, and fellow bibliophile, Kendel, recently blogged about real books vs. ebooks and it reminded me that it's about time I did a post about books. They're a small HUGE obsession of mine. I don't think I could ever own enough books. But I'm very particular about the ones I buy. While I would (probably) not buy a book purely for it's aesthetic quality, if there is more than one option, you can bet I'll buy the best looking one, regardless of price (within reason). When bookcases are such a large part of many homes and the obvious bookcase fillers are books (duh), why wouldn't you buy the best looking one?

This may be the only time you ever hear someone say Go Ahead and Judge a Book by its Cover.

A little sneak peek at SC's bookcase...

While I could never organize my books this way, by color with no regard to author or genre, it certainly creates a beautiful effect.

My books are arranged a little more methodically.

I need a bigger bookcase...
Pride & Prejudice and the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes are my two favorite, and most collected, books. I currently own at least four copies of each. (to be fair, two of the P&Ps are modern rewrites, but it still counts) All with very different covers and typefaces.

Let's take the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes for example.

I found these editions (listed with their original publication date) currently for sale on Barnes&Noble's website. After I gathered enough to prove my point, I stopped looking. There were still more options. This doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of what you could find at a used bookstore or another online bookstore.

1960

1992

2003

2003 - one of the editions I own. :)

2004

2009 (released the same year as the movie starring Robert Downey Jr, clearly)

2009 - one of the other editions I own.

With this many options to choose from, why settle for an ugly book? And with so many old, used books needing homes from used book stores, why buy a new one? There's nothing I love more than $0.50 stickers on books. Heaven on earth.