Raising Awareness (RAINN-y Day Awareness Pendants)

I've been wanting to play more with wire and beads, and at the same time, I've wanted to create some sort of awareness item. Granted, everything in my RAINN-y Day line is designed to raise awareness, but I wanted something more obvious. I've been playing around with making an awareness pack, filled with Get Carded awareness cards, a condom, some lube... but those sorts of things aren't allowed on Etsy (not the message, but none of the stuff would be handmade).

I settled on a ribbon. Everyone knows tha the ribbon campaigns stand for something. You know, red for AIDS, pink for breast cancer, yellow to support the troops. Teal happens to represent two things: Sexual Assault Awareness and prostate cancer. Both are great causes, but I'm a big advocate of raising the former.

And so I decided to take my 28 gauge wire, some seed beads, and my trusty crochet hook to fashion some ribbons. I made two: the smaller is almost an inch and the larger is almost an inch and a half. Just a row of single crochet, but it curled nicely into a ribbon shape.

I found this particular shape required not one, but two, jump rings in order to suspend well from a cord. I also discovered that I'm out of satin ribbon, so I had to use repurposed cotton/linen. I don't think anyone will mind.

Lessons learned:
1) Silver-plated base metal wire is not nearly as nice to work with as 100% precious metal wire (but it does keep costs down)
2) There is definitely a difference between half-hard and dead-soft wire, and I prefer the latter
3) I hate jump rings. Scott needs to start making these immediately so I can have him close them around my projects, rather than doing it myself

I'll be posting these little trinkets in my shop today. Spread the word. 1 in 6 women and 1 in 33 men are survivors. Raise awareness. Fight the rape culture. Support RAINN and/or your local crisis center. Please.