My Grandpa T. recently celebrated his 80th birthday this past month and we had a huge surprise party for him. My Grandma had asked me this past fall to make him a bola tie that she could give to him for the occasion. So off to work I went. I had never made a bola tie before, so this was something fun and new for me to attempt. My older sister Leora had made a few so obviously the first thing I did was to go to her for advice on what I needed to do. She had some great ideas and soon I was planning the design for the project.
Grandma hadn't given me a whole lot of instructions, just that he needed something that he could wear to church and for nice occasions. This was fine with me as I tend to do my best work when I get to just mess around and experiment as I go. Not too long after I was asked to make the tie I was in one of the local bead shops and I saw some green opal that just completely inspired me to make the tie. I bought the green opal and by the next morning I had dreamt about how I wanted the tie to look.
The stone itself looks as if it has a mountain scene on it with a spark of lightning coming out of the sky hitting the mountain tops. Below the mountains it looks like a river is running in the valley below. It's a pretty cool stone. So what I wanted to do was place evergreens in the four directions with a starry night sky above, seeing as we used to do a lot of camping with the grandparents when me and my siblings were all kids. I tried to keep the design simple yet interesting. I, myself, am very happy with the final product, in fact I am still trying to figure out how on earth I will be able to make something just as cool for my dad in the future.
Grandma hadn't given me a whole lot of instructions, just that he needed something that he could wear to church and for nice occasions. This was fine with me as I tend to do my best work when I get to just mess around and experiment as I go. Not too long after I was asked to make the tie I was in one of the local bead shops and I saw some green opal that just completely inspired me to make the tie. I bought the green opal and by the next morning I had dreamt about how I wanted the tie to look.
The stone itself looks as if it has a mountain scene on it with a spark of lightning coming out of the sky hitting the mountain tops. Below the mountains it looks like a river is running in the valley below. It's a pretty cool stone. So what I wanted to do was place evergreens in the four directions with a starry night sky above, seeing as we used to do a lot of camping with the grandparents when me and my siblings were all kids. I tried to keep the design simple yet interesting. I, myself, am very happy with the final product, in fact I am still trying to figure out how on earth I will be able to make something just as cool for my dad in the future.
My Grandpa T and me.
