Nautical cuff bracelet

I finished it! Ahh I'm so happy, it came out even better than I imagined. I don't have too many pictures of the process because once I started I had my hands covered in glue and it went kind of fast...but here's a poorly worded breakdown, with fewer pictures than I had hoped for. Enjoy!

First off, though, let me remind you of my inspiration...these gorgeous Chanel Resort 2013 bracelets. (Here's the one picture source I could actually find, they're all over pinterest but most of the links are bad.)



And here's my take:



I used a really sturdy cardboard piece from an old roll of tape for the bracelet base...it was kind of small so I cut it open to make it a cuff. Then I measured it, and cut a piece of fabric that was approximately 9" by 5½". (The bracelet part was 2" wide, and I wanted the fabric to wrap around it almost three times...back, front, then back again, if that makes sense.)



You can sort of see what I mean in this picture. Of course this is after I glued it all...I just used some Elmer's glue with a few drops of water added to make it easier to paint on (I used a paintbrush). I started on the inside, spread glue all the way along the inside, then placed the fabric on top, and then went over it again with glue. Then I did the front part the same way - it was a bit of a challenge to get the fabric folded over the top, and keep it straight along the inside since I did it all at once instead of doing one piece at a time and letting them dry. (Which, in hindsight, might have been easier, but I had poured too much glue and I was trying to use it all at once so it didn't dry out.) Then, I folded it back down on the inside, and spread a few more layers of glue on there.



I let all that dry for a few hours, then went back and added the anchor charm onto the front with hot glue.



And then I let that dry overnight, and now I have an awesome new cuff bracelet, made for free because I used stuff I already had lying around.

P.S.
Linking to:

Not Just a Housewife's Show Me What Ya Got

Spring projects & weekend words

I've been feeling more productive the past few days...I've managed to organize a lot of stuff in the bedroom, vacuum 90% of it, pulled out all my warm weather shoes, (even though the weather still isn't cooperating...which is cool, I don't mind extra winter) and even have a few spring projects to work on this week.

First up is a simple hem, but a major update...I bought these as pants last year, and then cut side slits, but only ended up wearing them a couple of times. I decided yesterday to cut them into shorts. There's still about a 3" slit on each side, and I like them much better now!

I'm also hoping to find time to make a bracelet...based on these gorgeous Chanel bracelets from the Resort 2013 collection:

Here's a sneak peek at what I'll be using for mine:

I'm actually pretty excited about that, I've had that scrap of seersucker for a while, but couldn't ever seem to find a project that seemed good enough to use it on...same goes for that anchor charm. A friend of mine gave it to me a while back, it used to be a clip-on earring, but it's long since lost the clip, and I don't have the pair anyway.

One more fashion trend I've been craving for spring is a good pair of lace shorts. I've had my eye on this pair of alice + olivia ones, but was pleasantly surprised to find these really similar (but more reasonably priced) ones in the new Pearl by Georgina of Marchesa collection at J.C. Pennys! I'm hoping to get them next month.

Here's a side-by-side comparison of them:


...Pretty sure I can find plenty of things to do with the $335 that I'll save!

Our weekend has been pretty uneventful...as usual. Well except for Josh creating his own little fiasco last night/this morning. He got drunk, and I went to bed, and apparently some weird stuff went down but he doesn't remember anything. I think I'm happier not knowing.

We walked to Family Dollar this afternoon because we forgot dish soap while we were at the grocery store yesterday, and tonight Josh grilled steaks and a lobster tail, and I made the saffron & lobster mashed potatoes. They were good, but not $36 dollar good. The saffron threads didn't seem to add anything special. I may make them again because we still have a bunch of saffron left, and I really don't know what else to use it for, but I think I'll have to mess with the recipe some...maybe add cheese. I don't know. I feel the same way about the spicy shrimp dip I made last night. Good but not great.

Anyway, on the menu this week are a couple of new dishes (superfood salad, and pineapple pepper pork chops) along with some of my recipes (spaghetti, crock pot jambalaya, and almond crusted cod). Not as adventurous as last week, but that's ok.

Still doing good on my goals for this month. Should be able to finish the month with only having bought 4 things, (sunglasses, a skirt, and two sports bras) and with a decent weight loss. (Not quite 10 pounds, but that was a long shot for a 28 day month anyway.) So far, five pounds this month, so if I can bring it down one more by the end of the week, that'll be perfect! Hopefully my knee will stay calm and I can get in my normal amount of workout time this week.

Well for some reason (oh, maybe because I'm on my 4th cup of Mio for the day) I have a ton of energy, so I'm going to go use it productively...or just dance around the living room. Whatevs.

Monday musings

I'm one week into my month of not buying anything and so far so good! It kind of helps that I have stuff I ordered last month that's being delivered sporadically throughout the month, so even if I'm not buying anything, I'm still getting stuff. Today this bracelet came:

So pretty! I love it.

Oh, I wanted to mention this too; I've never really watched The Biggest Loser, not from the start anyway. Occasionally I would catch an episode here or there, or tune in to the finale, but today I had just finished my workout when it came on, so I sat down to watch. It was week two, so this is the earliest I've ever gotten involved, so to speak, and they had a consultation with a doctor for the results of some tests, and something he said really hit home with me. He told one gentleman, "If you had leukemia, wouldn't it be worth it to take two hours out of your day for chemotherapy?"

It just clicked, you know? That all the times I've made excuses for not working out, or for eating a slice of pizza, what I've really been doing is keeping myself sick. If I had any other illness, I wouldn't refuse treatment or cheat on taking medicine - I would do what I needed to do to get better. I sat there, stunned for a minute, letting that philosophy penetrate my mind, and then I got up and started doing more mini-workouts during commercial breaks. Squats, weights, crunches and leg lifts; these are my treatment and healthy food is my medicine. This is no longer a ploy to lose weight that can get tossed on the back burner when something else comes up - this is my life, and I need to be healthy in order to enjoy it to the fullest.

Which brings up another point; my schedule, or lack thereof to be exact. All my life it's been the same - school or work on weekdays, and weekends to catch up on everything else. But yesterday, while I was trying to load the dishwasher in a commercial break during the NCIS marathon Josh and I were watching I realized: I've been doing it all wrong.

My only job now is to be a housewife, and all that stuff that I've been trying to squeeze into a weekend, should be stretched out over the week. My weekdays should focus on cooking three healthy meals for us, picking up after each one so the kitchen mess doesn't pile up, and doing one chore or cleaning one room per day (so as not to get overwhelmed), and my weekends should be mine; to do what I want to, whether it's go on a shopping spree or lay at home watching TV. I need to flip my entire way of thinking around!

Anyway, I've been doing good with my other goal of logging my food intake. I realized that (fortunately!) I haven't been eating as many calories as I thought I was, but I also know that I need to cut out or cut down on a couple of things cheese. I'm trying, and so far I have, and since my moment of clarity today, everything suddenly seems so much easier. I know it won't all be, and I know that I will have moments where I struggle, but...I don't know, I just feel different somehow.

I'm putting together a review post of all my favorite gluten free products, so hopefully I can get that done and posted soon!

31 Days Series: Leather and rhinestone bracelet

Well, today I decided to scale back and keep it simple...and when my first idea didn't work out like I'd hoped, I made it even simpler.

Being a huge fan of Stevie Nicks I've been wanting to do something with leather and lace pretty much since I started crafting, and haven't managed to get around to it...and after the failure of my first attempt today, I guess it's still going to have to wait just a little bit longer. Instead I settled on leather and rhinestones!

I really wanted this to work, too, but I'll just wait and try another day. I laid out all some of my lace onto a scrap of brown leather to see what I liked best...

And chose this.

And while it was great in theory, it did not work out. I didn't take a picture of the disaster, but basically the lace just would not stay in place while I was trying to sew it down, so it looked stretched in some places, crooked in others, and was just...messy. I didn't like it.

So I moved on, cut a thinner piece of black leather (every time I'm at Michael's, I buy a bag of scrap leather, so I have a ton of it) and cut a piece of rhinestone trim for it. (This stuff is available at basically any place that sells fabric; it's usually in the trim/ribbon section and sells by the yard.) I hand stitched it down straight down the middle, punched a hole in each end, and attached jump beads and a clasp. Simple and cute.

(See a list of the other 30 days in this series here.)

HERE IN MY CAR...

We've had the TV on the 'Flashback New Wave' channel all week...AND IT IS SPECTACULAR.

I can't believe it's already Friday again. After I realized that I rushed off to the post office to mail the necklaces that I gave away on Facebook last week, lest people think I promise things but then fail to deliver. Now it's in the hands of the post office. If they don't deliver, at least it's not on me.

I made a lot of things this week, and also (tried) to clean and rearrange my craft room. It's like 80% done but I already started in the kitchen so this weekend is going to be interesting trying to finish them both. In reality, though I'll probably do nothing for the rest of today, then start on the bedroom tomorrow morning, and then have three half finished rooms for the rest of the week. Eh. As long as it gets done before the third week of September.

Oh, the things I made, right...I think I posted pictures of a few things, mostly the leather bracelets...I also made this:

And while it may just look like another boring Chan-Luu style bracelet, there's actually a much more in depth story behind it...see back in 2004, when I used to get Lucky magazine (the first time around) I saw a bracelet like that in there. I don't remember the brand, but it was pretty much exactly like the Chan-Luu ones that have recently soared in popularity. Anyway, I knew that I could make one very easily, so I did. But the beads I used weren't all that great and before long the color rubbed off of them and they were clear with just flecks of color left on the insides of a few of them, and that looked crappy so I scrapped it. I started to make another but it's a rather time-consuming process, and it was around that time that I finally made some friends in Arkansas and started going out and so it sat, half-done, in a box of craft stuff for the next 6 years. (Not even kidding.) Then, two summers ago, I found it, and started thinking that I needed to either finish it or make another one...and as you can see, it took me two years to do that. And now everyone will think I did it because of the Chan-Luu craze, but I DIDN'T. I WAS EONS AHEAD OF THIS FAD. Just...not consistently.

Not that it matters, really...

Moving on...

I also started working on party favors for my second annual pumpkin carving party. (We missed last year because we were in the process of moving at the time I normally would have thrown it.) A few years ago (like 4) when I worked at Joann's for all of 3 months (if that) I bought a bunch of packages of Halloween themed Christmas ornaments. (Surprising that they didn't sell out, huh?) I wanted to make jewelry out of them but after gluing earring backs onto a couple of them I lost interest and they too got banished to the Craft Box of Shame. But, like I said, recently I've been in a crafty mood and I pulled them out and started making them into necklace charms. Here's my process (sort of):

This is what they look like originally, with the string:

I pulled that out using tweezers (I just grabbed it tight, then twisted it around and around until it popped out - pulling it would usually resulting in it breaking off at the edge, and leaving part of the string in there.) Once I had an empty hole I would dip one of those tiny rounded top screw things in (E6000) glue (they're actually made for picture frames) and then screw it down into the hole.

And then, after those were dry, I could attach a jump ring and string it onto a necklace chain!

Now I have a box full of cute things to give away!

Tonight we're heading downtown to watch Joshs cousins band play at our local bar/live music venue, and as I mentioned, I'll probably be cleaning a bunch over the weekend, but once I get my craft room 100% organized I'll try to post some pictures! It is much more comfortable to work in now, and I have it set up to be inspiring and easy to get at all my stuff.

Fun with zippers

A few months ago (more than a few? I lose track of time occasionally) my mother-in-law gave me a Giant Bag o' Zippers. And by a Giant Bag I mean a Giant Bag. I have zippers out the wazoo. (I guess that's how one would spell 'wazoo' - spell check doesn't seem to have a problem with it.) Anyway, I've been pinning zipper crafts for a while now, and the other night I finally sat down on the floor, emptied the GBoZ and started picking through them. I found that I had four 7 in. zippers, which seemed like the perfect size for bracelets, so I started brainstorming ideas on how to get from point A to point B.

I have an eyelet kit, which seemed like it would simplify things, but I soon figured out that the hole punching side wasn't sharp enough to punch through the heavy duty zipper fabric. Then I found a way to make the hole using one of the attachments, but it only worked making the largest size hole, and that wasn't working either because then there wasn't enough fabric left for the eyelet to grab onto. Luckily I figured all this out on one zipper so it wasn't too much of a waste. I finally managed to devise a system that worked (I honestly don't even remember exactly what I did. It was a combination of the eyelet hole punch, and an exacto knife.) I made two bracelets, then removed myself from the situation before I went insane.

I was fairly satisfied with the two bracelets I made (one of which I gave away on facebook) but the thought of that failure still bothered me. Mainly because the zipper that I had started out with was a gorgeous light turquoise, absolutely beautiful, and I really didn't want it to have been wasted. Then, yesterday morning while browsing pinterest, I saw this a photo series of a zipper folded into a hear and made into a necklace. (No source, it was just a series of pictures made into one long photo.) It looked really simple, so I took the basic idea and kind of fiddled with it a bit, and came up with my own take on it...and now I'm giving that away too! (I'm not big on necklaces. I have two that I wear interchangeably, when I remember...I just feel like they draw too much attention to my chest, which doesn't need any help, really.)

So here are the pictures...they were both pretty simple to make, using supplies I had laying around the house, especially the heart necklace...you could even recycle a broken zipper into one of these! And the yellow bracelet is the full zipper, so it can be worn either open or closed. :)

As promised...

 

pictures of my skeleton hand jewelry piece. I don't know what to call, it really, as it I've never seen anything quite like it. The idea just came to me, so I made it, and it's unique enough that I think I could sell them if I wanted...

Anyway. This is what the prototype looks like. I may or may not improve on it in the future. That really depends on whether I develop any other brilliant ideas in the near future that take my time away from this...if not, then I'll definitely mess with it a little. Either way, I hope you like it!