#i know hyl has remember surrender never but i don't know about the others

[ghostieblotts]

Blotts' Bracelets: Spy Another Day

Okay! Here we are - the very belated post about my bracelets for the West End Concert of Spies Are Forever!

Unfortunately, these photos aren't the greatest - they were taken in a hurry before setting off, and I hadn't had chance to remove the excess elastic yet - but they are better than nothing!

This is going to be a long post, so I'll put in a cut. Keep reading if you want to read my ridiculous and over-pretentious ramblings about some bracelets made with colourful plastic and clay beads!

First of all, the bracelets I made for the Meet & Greet! And yes, my hands were shaking as I tried to get these out on the day.

I made these the night before I left while listening to the SAF soundtrack. Fond memories.

'Flip diggity' was for Joey - I consistently used purple and pink for any Vanger Borschtit/We Love The Prince bracelets as I was aiming to match part of Vanger's original costume, although in hindsight I'm not sure why I didn't use burgundy instead of purple. Gold stars, since they seemed fitting for the glitz and glamour.

'Always end on a high note' was also for Joey - I actually made two of these, and kept the second one (which is the only bracelet I kept!) so I'll add a better photo to end the post. Fiery colours for the gunshot, befitting of the man who invented fire, and bronze stars because they felt most Owen.

'I'm stealing the show' and 'Let's dance' were both for Brian! The purple was meant to match the Informant's outfit during One More Shot, and then the rainbow colours were honestly just for fun (and I needed to make at least one rainbow bracelet for this show at some point, let's be real).

'Once a spy, always a spy' was for Corey, as it felt like a good line to represent the show. I used a lot of things in this bracelet that I used elsewhere to represent Curt - colours from the iconic jacket outfit, blue coloured stars, and smaller silver stars.

'The warmest hello' was also for Corey - I tried not to give two bracelets that were too similar - featuring warm colours and Owen's bronze stars, since I tend to associate this line more with Owen, personally.

Its counterpart, 'The coldest goodbye', was for Clark, with cold-coloured beads and lots of white to represent both ice and Curt's a1p1 outfit (with the blue for some of the lighting), along with Curt's silver stars. After all, I'd say that Curt delivers the coldest goodbyes in the show, both unintentional and intentional.

Finally, 'Lurking in the shadows' was also for Clark. I wanted the coloured beads to be a little bit like a spotlight on an otherwise dark stage.

On to the bracelets that I traded and gifted!

'It was the bees' knees' - self-explanatory yellow and black for bees here. One of the first bracelets I made, and one of my favourites!

'Good, you're learning' - I think I based the colours on Cynthia's a2p1 outfit for some reason, despite this line not being from that scene?

'You limey bastard' - I had so much fun trying to make the colours on this one look like a cut lime. I think it worked decently well!

'Somebody's gotta do it' - Sergio's outfit colours! I spent so long staring at screenshots trying to colour match this one. It worked out better than a lot of my colour matching attempts (I did not have the brown and neutral toned beads necessary to colour match the costumes in saf)

'Efficiency and skill' - I liked to always use the same type of purple beads for Tatiana. I ran out of them.

The 'Doing This' series! I typically used those blue beads as Curt's signature colour. I kept Tatiana's purple next to the bomb in 'That bomb/My heart', and Curt's blue close to the heart. Then with 'Better as friends' the hearts are closer together because they understand each other a little more now :) and then 'Don't have to pretend' has feature beads in purple for Tatiana and blue and orange for Curt (I didn't have the larger stars in red).

Then the matching pair of 'The warmest hello' and 'The coldest goodbye'. I added the hearts so that these two would be exactly the same size. Once again, the colours are dual purpose, chosen for the temperature and to represent Curt and Owen. The white and blue was to represent Curt's a1p1 outfit under blue lighting, and the brownish-orange beads were the ones I used as Owen's signature colour (since I didn't have the right beads for a true colour match).

Introducing the DMA's signature colour - these weird, kinda fleshy-coloured beads! They just felt right, and again I lacked a good colour match for his costume. 'The horror of staying alive' was the first bracelet where I used these beads as I felt they matched the line quite nicely, and they returned for 'I'm a different breed', with yellow and orange feature beads to kind of allude to the DMA's shirt. (Though as I'm looking at these again, I think if I wore this one I would also read those beads as being the punch after this line in Torture Tango).

A series of bracelets from 'We love the prince' - I tried to give them a little bit of visual variety while keeping to that pink-and-purple theme I established for Vanger. I had the unexpected pleasure of meeting AJ Holmes outside the theatre, and he ended up getting the 'Jibber jabber' bracelet without picking deliberately - couldn't have planned that better if I had tried!

'It's actually a gun' has white and black beads for the scientists' outfits and some fiery feature beads for a gunshot.

'Pay attention' features my attempt at colour matching one of Barb's outfits - the peach and blue beads were to try and incorporate some texture, since she wears a lot of patterned fabric.

Another matching pair! 'Old buddy' and 'Old pal', with colours to match who the line is addressed to.

'Me and my partner Owen' - I had so much fun with this one. Curt's blue beads around 'me', white beads for Curt's a1p1 and casino outfits, red beads for the accents on the jacket, and Owen's beads around his name. Then the feature beads with the different colours representing Curt and individual Owen beads surrounding/in between them.

'Remember/surrender/never' - a straightforward design I really liked! Featuring Tatiana, the DMA, and Curt's signature bead colours.

'Eyes on the prize' - white and black beads for Curt's casino outfit, and purple and red for the incredible lighting in this scene.

'I don't believe in chance' with purple for Tatiana, and 'Back to the bakery' with Sergio's colours!

Lots of orange and Owen's signature beads for 'Oh, sod off'. I'm not sure why I used white and blue for 'They call that ⭐treason⭐' - I think I was going for vaguely Union Flag vibes? Could have done with some red though. Stars for emphasis

Oh I spent so long on this one. I wanted it to be able to loop endlessly as well as matching the number of repeats in the original line, without making the bracelet too loose. If you start with the coloured letter beads and read them again at the end, it's the right number of repeats for 'A spy is a spy is a spy is a spy is a spy'. Red and blue beads for Curt, and the coloured letter beads were meant to just generally match the spy characters.

'Personal history'. Lavender.

Another matching pair - 'Once a spy' with colours from Curt's a1p1 outfit, and 'Always a spy' with colours from Curt's iconic jacket outfit.

Nearly done!

'My old friend' - another one in lavender!

'Pretend to be a hero again' - this was another fun one! A very small set of feature beads to recreate the iconic jacket outfit, and then using those beads again throughout the bracelet - but 'hero' has the colours of Curt's a1p1 outfit around it. I was thinking about Curt's attempts to 'be the old him' again, and how tying that to his a1p1 colours could be a bit sarcastic with calling him a 'hero', going with the bitterness of 'pretend'.

'To honor' - this was the first bracelet I made for SAF! I made it at the same time as I made 'sample lady at Costco' for Solve-It Squad since it used the same colours. I was trying to kind of make miniature American flags, with more of that patriotic red, white, and blue in the stars, and then hearts in red and blue as an extra touch. I hope Mr. Big would approve. (I did spend a while thinking about which spelling to use. 'Honor' felt more appropriate. My spellcheck doesn't seem to agree.)

'One step ahead' - featuring both the signature beads for Owen and the DMA, more bronze and orange stars for Owen, and a small blue star for Curt.

'How the story ends' - another fun one to end with, featuring Curt and the DMA's signature beads, three stars in blue and orange for Curt, and individual orange stars for Owen.

And that's it! All 43 bracelet designs I made for SAF London. If you read all of this, thank you so much! Here's a better picture of my copy of 'Always end on a high note' to end the post :)