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As promised, a tutorial on the bracelets I recently made! This is going to be picture-heavy. You will need: a couple feet of beads, leather cording and matching embroidery floss, the bar half of a toggle clasp, scissors, pliers, three needles, tape (I used painter’s tape because it’s sticky but not too sticky), and a measuring tape of some sort.
What a whirlwind weekend! I spent lot of time with the important Fs: friends, family and food! If you asked Sweet Pea what the best part of the weekend was, she would tell you it was the beautiful Bakhtiari rug that my parents brought her — er, brought Mark and me. They bought it about a decade ago and it doesn’t match the colors in their new home, but it does perfectly match ours! Of course, Sweet Pea doesn’t care — she’s busy loving the fact that she is finally allowed on carpet, which is not the case elsewhere in the house.
She likes that rug so much that she didn’t wake us up by serenading us the way she usually does on weekend mornings. She doesn’t need us for entertainment anymore — not when there are so many little patterns and fringe pieces to pounce on! I hope you had a nice weekend. Today after our customary enormous Sunday brunch I made another bracelet, and this time I documented the process so I can share it Tuesday or Thursday evening. I also have a random beauty product review to share. Let’s go get ‘em! Have a great week! I have been a bad, bad blogger. Thursday I was so tired I forgot all about blogging until about 11:30 when I was getting ready for bed, and although I thought about writing a post Friday, obviously I didn’t bother. I haven’t even touched the blog I maintain for my Toastmasters club in nearly a month! I don’t think you can call that ‘maintaining.’ I’m ashamed.
I’m a little bit more rested now after three days off, however, so let’s just let bygones be bygones. Did you have a nice weekend? I did. I got a crafty little whim and decided I could whip up some of the bracelets that I’ve been coveting but refuse to pay $100-200 for. Come on, I can put beads, leather and string together for less than that. So I did!
The first one was tricky to get started, but now I’ve got my technique down and I plan to make a few more in various colors. Have you DIYed lately? This is a project that was many years in the making (thousands, if you want to be literal). When I lived in New Jersey I bought a multi-compartment shadowbox that I intended to fill with various treasures. For some reason, I never did it. While I had my rock collection out the other day, I finally pulled together enough elements from my childhood fossil and nature collections to finish this project. (As an aside, I got my shadowbox from Michael’s, but I don’t see it on their website, so you’ll have to check your store. I did find one that looks identical on Target’s website.) I set out all of my items onto the background, set the dividers over top, and began gluing. I intended to use putty in case I wanted to do something else with the specimens in the future, but quickly realized that hot glue was going to be far more practical, particularly for the most fragile items like the sand dollar:
Once you’re done, set the glass and frame on top, gently tilt the whole assembly, secure the fasteners, et voila:
For as many years as I put this off (probably about 5), it took maybe 20 minutes at most to put together and turned out even better than I expected. I’m trying to figure out what else I can give the shadowbox treatment. :) What would you put in your shadowbox? As a child, I had a lot of collections. As an adult…I still have a bunch of them. Most of them have been sitting in boxes since we got to Texas three years ago. They bring me absolutely no enjoyment that way, but that doesn’t mean I’m ready to part with them! I was recently inspired by a friend’s home to pull some of those treasures back into the light of day and keep them there. Read on to see how you can pass off your childhood collections as decor! I started with my rock and mineral collection:
Also needed: an apothecary jar (I got mine from Michael’s, but these are so popular right now that you should be able to find them at any large craft store) and tongs. I thought I would need the styrofoam, but I didn’t. You might. It depends on how big of a nerd you are.
Start filling! My strategy was to fill by color. I had an enormous chunk of pyrite, so I used the tongs to carefully place that in the middle of the very bottom and put smaller pieces of pyrite, hematite and anything sparkly around it. I also placed the larger, less-interesting stones (pumice, unpolished marble) into the middle of the column as I went, which prevented me from needing to cut a piece of the styrofoam as filler. If you do need it, you might want to spray it first with that craft paint that looks like stone finish.
When you’re done, you’ll have something like this:
Follow the jump to see the second project! I finally finished it! Just in time to take it down in 48 hours!
Instructions after the jump! Continue reading Heart garland: how-to I’m not one of those Christmas People who have twelve boxes of decorations in their attic and start pulling them out the second the last bite of Thanksgiving turkey has been eaten, but lately I have been missing the Christmas decorations. We took them down a little earlier than I would have liked — it just worked out that way. So I decided I would make some Valentine’s Day decorations! Usually I would have ideas like this three days before the holiday, but this year I had plenty of time. Maybe. I’m still working on the second project and we’ll see if I finish that one before the 14th, but I can share the first one tonight!
I made enough for all of the shutters on the main floor. If you don’t have plantation shutters or another way to hang them in your windows, they would be cute hanging from doorknobs. Follow the jump if you want to see how to make them! Continue reading Hearts on a string: how-to |
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