Saint Valentin

Happy Valentine's Day.  People ask me if the holiday exists in France: yes, but not to the same extent.  I only started seeing publicity for it a week ago.  And what I saw was low-key: a few romantic ads at the bus stops, signs for Saint Valentin over the florist's, a few red hearts on the candy store window.  Today, red roses were placed at the forefront of the floral boutiques and chocolates were within easy reach at the grocery store.  It seems that Valentine's Day in France is practiced only by couples and the romantic-- it hasn't grown into the card-sending, teddy-bear-giving occasion for all ages that it has become in the United States.

This weekend, a friend invited me to a jewelry-making workshop at a woman's house, a woman whom I know from church and other events, like the card-making party.  We started by choosing the colors for our beads and rolling our clay.  Regressive learning, we were back in kindergarten!

The clay was put into a gun-like device and pushed out into this spaghetti.

We rolled nine beads of very precise size out of the same clay.

Wrapped the colored squiggles around the beads.

When all the beads were wrapped and rolled they were put into a toaster oven for half an hour.

After they were baked, we drilled holes through them with an electric drill, strung them, and voila.

The end result.

I don't have much to go with it, but the process was fun nonetheless!