Graveyard Glitter

Branched evolutions. A nightmare to make, but so much fun to show off. These took forever to make, because I ran out of white beads after making Poliwrath and didn't get the chance to buy more until about two weeks later. Poliwag: A simple pair of earrings, with tiny white beads dangling from silver spirals. Sorry for the blurs, they don't like pictures. Poliwhirl: Silver spiral S shapes, with blue and white beads between them. Yes, the darker beads are blue. It didn't like pictures, either. Poliwrath: A prearranged strand of beads that came together, in this order, but fit the Pokémon enough that I didn't replace anything. Blue and white beads  Politoed: A prearranged strand of beads, with sparkly yellow replacing what the beads gave me in brown. This took too long for the lack of creativity I got to have, but I got the Poliwag family off my list and can move on to better pieces. Not that I don't like the Poliwag family, of course. 

A Pokémon that is basically a fire-breathing dog wasn't that difficult of a design. It was getting good pictures that was tricky. I have actually had these done for a while, and have finished up to Machoke on the national Pokedex list. I'm just now catching up here. Growlithe: I had orange beads left over from Charmander and Paras, so I didn't have to buy any more of those, and I always have the black beads on hand. I only had to buy the paw prints, which were about $4 on ebay. Arcanine: The bracelet used the same beads, and finished off the packet of paw prints. It's made with memory wire, a short chain, and a lobster clasp. I forgot what I was going to say about most of these, but at least they turned out cute.

I realized in the imagination process that this Pokémon would be hard. How do you communicate "Perpetually angry hairball that beats the snot out of everything" using cute jewelry? The result was this. Mankey: An angry monkey with no visible mouth. It's a simple design, so these earrings are a simple design. Gold beads came from a strand I bought at Hobby Lobby, white beads from radrockmama on Etsy. Primeape: Much less simple than the earrings, this necklace is one of the best things that came from this challenge. White beads came from radrockmama on Etsy, and most of the brown beads came from the same strand as the Hobby Lobby beads in the earrings. Some brown beads were left over from Pidgey and Spearow. I love the necklace, but unfortunately, my skin tone is too light to wear it. It would look really nice on someone with darker skin, but anyone who can wear white can wear it. I will sell it in the hope of someone finding it and giving it a good home.

I'll admit it, my creativity wasn't the greatest here. However, Psyduck is a duck crossed with a platypus, so I'll ignore my thoughts for this one. Psyduck: The yellow beads were from a Hobby Lobby strand left over from Pikachu, while the white ones were from the Etsy shop redrockmama, and left over from Meowth. Golduck: The same white beads, and the big blue ones from a big Hobby Lobby tube. The projects weren't the greatest for how long it took to make them, but the good news is, they're done. I will try to do even better on the rest of them.

As a cat person, I always loved Meowth. Even the villain Meowth. When it was time to find the right inspiration for this evolution family, I had to once again decide not to use the Alolan forms and just go with the classic. Meowth: When I found these white beads during my second time buying from radrockmama on Etsy, I also found these little 'scaredy-cats' that I knew would be better for Meowth than any other cat charm. They remind me of my sister's cat, so I might have been biased. The memory wire bracelet closes with a small magnet clasp. Persian: Since Persian has the same colors as Meowth, just with a different forehead jewel, I decided to copy the Parasect design using the white beads and cat charms, add some red beads I got for the Oddish family. This set is adorable, but unfortunately, I don't look that good in white. I'm sure someone will buy it. Maybe for Christmas.

I thought Diglett would be a simple  Pokémon to do. I was wrong. After struggling to find how to do things right with these, I eventually decided on this design. Diglett: The single brown bead is the color of Diglett's single head, while the gray beads are the rubble it sticks up from and the pink the same color of the nose. The brown and gray beads came from SofiasCottage on Etsy, the pink ones were left over from Clefairy and Jigglypuff. Dugtrio: The same brown head, gray rubble applies here, but, like Dugtrio being a 3-headed Diglett, there's even more. The wooden beads are from Hobby Lobby, and so are the tiny pink ones. This turned out cuter than I imagined it would when I first came up with it. 52 Pokémon in and this challenge is still going.

I've always thought Venomoth was pretty cool. I thought about making it into a hair bow instead, but I decided against it. Luckily, I still had stuff left over from the Caterpie family, so I only bought one more strand of beads for this one. Venonat: Venonat is just a simple purple hairball with big red eyes. The ovals were left over from the Butterfree necklace, and the red was left over from the Gloom bracelet and Vileplume necklace. Venomoth: One of my favorite bracelets ever, made with memory wire and a magnet clasp. The purple beads are new from ebay, and the butterfly beads are left over from the Butterfree necklace. This is one set that I want to keep, but I know that I should sell it. If I love it this much, I know somebody else will.

I love the Paras family. The cute little crab-insect-mushroom thing, the surprisingly creepy inspiration, Parasect being a zombie-crab-insect-mushroom thing. I just love Paras. Unfortunately, I have never actually used a Paras in any game, so I don't really know how useful it is in battle. But I can tell you this, it makes cute jewelry. Paras: A simple pair of earrings, using orange beads and mushroom charms that I bought from ebay. Parasect: This bracelet was a lot of fun to make. A simple pattern on a single loop of memory wire, with dangly mushroom charms and a magnet clasp. The camera can't capture how nice it looks in person. With this set, I have completed the first TV Tropes page of Generation 1 Pokémon. If I make it to Generation 2 is a question I ask myself whenever my funding gets short, but I made two surprise sales this week. The challenge is still going.

Despite things reopening now, I continue to shop online for beads and other necessary items to complete my challenge. I'm selling half of these sets on ebay, though not under Pokémon names for obvious reasons, taking advantage of their free listings. If my sales go well, I can keep buying beads until Kanto is done. If not, I can pause my challenge. My first-ever branched evolution, I made two versions of both Oddish and Gloom, and gave Vileplume and Bellossom different necklaces to finish it off. I needed to buy more beads for the second set, but I consider it worth it if I can sell both. Oddish: The beads came from ebay. I found that this was the best design, because it was simple, just like Oddish's design. I can even draw Oddish, and I have no drawing talent at all. Gloom: A stretch bracelet using ebay beads, just like Golbat's. Gloom's design is a little more complicated than Oddish's, but it was easy to do. Vileplume: This was th...

Wow, I'm behind. I know most players find Zubat annoying, but I have several reasons for loving this evolution family. 1. I love bats. I have a good memories involving bats, Halloween is my favorite holiday, and according to Pottermore, my patronus would be a bat. 2. My Crobat in Moon saved me from certain doom at the hands of both Guzma and Kahili. 3. I had a shiny one in Sapphire . 4. Human attachment to the unloved. It's not Mawile or Gallade or Eevee (my top 3 choices) and Lunala is a better bat Pokémon, but I felt I should give the Zubat family some respect. Zubat: I am so proud of how these earrings turned out. After being forced to abandon my original design because I didn't know the size of the bats I ordered first, these turned out even better than my original design. The purple beads came from Hobby Lobby clearance years ago, the blue ones from ebay (I think they're sold out now) and the bats are from the Etsy shop radrockmama . Golbat...

I'm close to running out of pink beads now. I'm having too much fun to care. I love Jigglypuff. It's not in my top 10 favorites list, but I grew up watching Pokémon on TV as well as playing the games. A Jigglypuff was an important character in several episodes, so I needed to reference it in this set. Igglybuff: For Igglybuff, I just attached some charms to earring hooks. I tried to add some beads, but I couldn't close the earrings properly, so I gave up. Jigglypuff: These beads are all leftovers from the Clefairy set. The black ones came with the big pink center bead, and represent the microphone. Wigglytuff: I don't have a lot of white beads, but fortunately, the big pink beads came with some. All of these were from the packages I used to make the Clefairy set. I'm still going strong. Hopefully, I can actually make money sometime soon.

I've always liked cute Pokémon over the powerful ones, even now. I am a fire enthusiast. Combining these facts means that I should have a Vulpix or Ninetales on my game team every time I can. But I don't. I do, on the other hand, love how this set turned out. Vulpix: The brown beads are leftovers from the birds. The orange ones came from the clearance section of my Hobby Lobby before quarantine. Ninetales: This necklace uses the orange beads from the Vulpix earrings, and some orange and white crackle beads that I bought from ebay specifically for Ninetales. Tiny light peach beads are between each crackle bead, and between every set of two plain orange beads. Those tiny beads were also from ebay. I had to buy another container dedicated just to my Pokémon project stuff, but I am still listing other sets on ebay. I think I might keep this set for myself, and not just because I messed up a little on the back.

I wanted these big tubs of round beads for a few years. Before Hobby Lobby closed for the pandemic, they had them on sale. I bought them. And I am so glad I did, because I did not have the right shade of pink for this line otherwise. Cleffa: The pink beads on these earrings came from Wal-Mart, the brown from the bird families. These aren't anything special, but the glitter on the pink beads makes it clear that Cleffa was the inspiration. Clefairy: The Clefairy bracelet was harder to come up with. Most of the beads are from Wal-Mart, but the big pink one in the center was from the Hobby Lobby pack. Clefable: This one turned out a lot better than I thought it would. I used the same beads from the other two pieces to finish it, and added darker pink wooden beads from ebay to finish it. It turns out that the beads were the exact same color of Clefable's wings. I'm probably going to list this set, but there's a chance I'll just reserve it ...

While I was coming up with ideas for these Pokémon, quarantine hit. I had no way to go shopping, and limited funds outside of cash. Fortunately, I had enough in my paypal for a few purple beads, and even buying increases the feedback for my ebay store, which means I'll be selling again soon. So, with that out of the way, here are the projects for the Nidoking line. Nidoran: The thing I love most about Nidoran is that the girls are blue and the boys are pink. Well, the boys were pink in the official art for the first games and have been getting more purple since, but I went with pink on this one because pink is a color I actually had. The purple-splattered beads are from Hobby Lobby clearance last year, and I found the tiny pink ones in a thrift store or flea market two years ago. Nidorino: The bracelet is way too big for my child-sized wrist, but that's ok, because it means this set might actually sell. The beads around came from Hobby Lobby before quarant...