"Star-crossed" idea for the Fourth of July

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A few weeks ago, I had an idea for earrings with a Fourth of July theme. If only I had sat down with pen and paper right then and worked out the mechanics of how to make it.

Instead, I let a couple of weeks pass, and then finally last weekend, I took out some graph paper and tried to work out the trickiest part: How to make a star look star-ish without making it so big that I can't add the rest of my idea. I figure that at most, the star cannot be bigger than five beads high. However, no matter how I worked it -- brick stitch or square stitch -- my sketches seemed to look more like little aliens that stars.

One page of my "star" sketches.
So I switched to my Bead Canvas software, and yet again, I wasn't happy with the results.

More attempts to make a tiny star.


After a few hours of trying to figure it out, I think what I'll need to do is rely on the colors around the stars to make them look as they should, which, for me, will take trial and error. That's my goal for this coming week. Therefore, I am no longer hopeful that I'll get the earrings made in time for THIS Independence Day.

Hopefully by July 4, 2018, I'll have this baby figured out.

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