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Last night the wizard's staff had its jewel added. I used a blue flower shaped crystal with a hole in the center from Mill Hill. You probably can't tell from the photo, but I used a blue bead to hold the crystal in place. Bring your needle up in the center of the Holograpic Fyrewerks oval, put the crystal on the needle, then go through the bead's hole and back down through the crystal and tie off on the back side.
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I also added the trunk's brass lock, stitching it on using the same brassy gold colored Fyrewerks that the edges of the trunk were stitched in. The really interesting thing I did was I used the same ribbon-like Fyrewerks for the decorative stitches underneath the stone on the top of the staff. Look at the top photo again. See the gold lines at the base of the oval? That's Fyrewerks, too. I simply came up with a short length in my needle, then twisted it over and over and over until the thread resembled a perle-type thread instead of a flat ribbon. Then holding it steady about an inch from the fabric, I plunged the needle. That holds the twist in place. Come up again, repeat for as many times as you need to do the tight cord that resembles how Joan Thomasson decorated the base of her staff's stone.
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow