Fabric Bracelet

I've been seeing all kinds of different fabric bracelets on Pinterest lately. Some have multiple coordinating fabrics, some are wrapped around cuffs, and others are just strips tied together with dangling charms. I love them all and wanted to try my hand at it. I like the rough edges of torn fabric, so that's the idea I started chasing. There are as many ways to make a fabric bracelet as there are fabrics - this is just the way I went about it.

First, pick your fabric. I love this bold pattern! This is a remnant and so was pretty inexpensive.

Give yourself a little bit of a start by cutting in notches, about 1 inch apart. Use these to start tearing. I made two braids, so six strips total.

Gathered my tools and some additional supplies.

Looks orangish - but everything is black, white or red.

I even used some of the fabric to cover buttons. 

Braid three of the fabric strips together. I use a safety pin to attach it to something solid so I can pull it tight. Do this again to make a second braid.

Now, I tied the two braids together with some coordinating ribbon.

The ribbon I was using was too fat and too stiff. I ended up cutting off the small seams along each side and that seemed to help with both problems.

I restrung some pearls onto wire to make them stronger, I knew I'd be tugging on them. 10 inches seemed to work perfectly. Leave a couple of inches of wire on each side, you'll use this to attach it at the start and then again to finish it at the end.

Use excess wire to attach the pearls to your bundle and anchor it to something solid, this box is filled with magazines and wasn't going anywhere no mater how hard I pulled. Begin braiding all your strands together. (I added the button just above the knot with some strong quilting thread.)

Close-up of the braid 

Once you get to the other end you need to tie another tight knot to keep it all together, keep the knot a little loose and don't include the pearls yet. I have extra wire from the pearls, don't cut it off!

To make the closure, I used an elastic hair band. Slide it into the knot, tighten the knot and use the excess pearl wire to help attach it.

Weave the end back down into the braid if needed. Now cut off the excess fabric and ribbon to make everything the same length.

Check the size and make any adjustments needed to your bracelet.

 Add a few well spaced buttons, bows, charms, etc. 

Voila! You are done! 

I can't wait to make a few more of these, my first two were given as Christmas gifts. I bought a remnant of green/purple fabric that I want to make into a bracelet - that one may end up being mine. We'll see....

Honestly, not LOL

Okay, it's almost the New Year and I have decided to try and be more honest and transparent this year. What that means to you is that I will no longer be typing LOL if I'm not really Laughing Out Loud,

Instead, I am submitting a few new acronyms that I will be using from now on. Please learn them so that I do not have to continually explain myself and therefor, defeat the entire purpose of using an acronym.

CTMS - This is Chuckling To Myself, which I guess I could even shorten to CTM since Myself is one word and not two.

GIMH - Grinning In My Head. I mean really, how often do you actually LOL? Most times I am grinning in my head and if I find it really funny, I may even have a smirk on my face.....

SOMF - Smirk On My Face.

JSCOMC! - Just Spewed Coffee On My Computer! Now, that was funny!

Happy New Year!

Christmas Crafts - Part 1

I was going to wait and post the things I have been working on in these weeks leading up to Christmas all in one post. Then I started looking at all the things I have plans for and decided it would be way too overwhelming. So, this is part 1 of my Christmas Crafts blog post. (The presents have been given to their recipients already, so I'm not ruining any surprises).

Today was AJ's last day of school this year and he is now on Winter Break. His teacher had an all day party for them including pizza and cookies, etc. She and I spoke months ago about me coming in and doing a craft project with the kids and like the insane person I am, I decided to do two!!

The projects were both Christmas ornaments and the kids did incredibly well! I will be a much better teacher the next time around, because my verbal directions did not always transfer into them making a similar result. (It was a learning process for all of us!) This first ornament is a "stained glass" ball that is made from a glass ornament, white glue and tissue paper squares.

They may not have been big, but they made a big impact! 

The next one is a wreath made from puzzle pieces. After gluing all the layers the kids then painted it green and added glitter and a ribbon. I tried making a tree as well, it turned out cute, but was definitely way too advanced to try and teach!

I have always given two gifts for Christmas, one for the teacher and one for the class.  For the class gift,  I buy a gross of colorful fun pencils from OTC - I figure at this point in the year some new pencils are definitely needed. AJ's teacher is not big on sugar so coming up with her gift was more challenging. I kept seeing these signs on pinterest but with the subject being Grandpa and knew I had to make a personalized one for Ms. Martinez.

It is made on a wooden plaque and then just painted with acrylic craft paints and rubber stamped flower designs. I love how it turned out and she seemed to get a kick out of it. I had AJ do some re-con at the beginning of the year and found out her favorite color is green (that's also how I found out she doesn't do sugar).

This next one is a gift I made for a gift exchange with our bible fellowship group. Our name is "OinC" and it stands for One in Christ. We all love to eat and so it seems to work for us so we made a pig our mascot. The frame was purchased at Kohls, then I made the beaded dangles which can be detached and used elsewhere. One has a pig charm and one with a cross. The Christmas tree can live there until the person finds another picture they want to display.

Last are two clay crosses. I posted a tutorial HERE and these were done in the same fashion. The first one is for an ornament gift exchange and the second was just a little something for my bible study teacher.

That's it for this post, I hope you enjoyed seeing some of my projects. I have two more that I'm currently in the middle of - but those will have to wait until after Christmas!

Looking forward to sleeping in and a couple of weeks of a more relaxed schedule  - and no homework! (Thanks Ms. M!)

It's A Kid's Christmas Blog Hop

Thanks to Cathy for inviting me to her Kid's Christmas blog hop! This is my first one so I hope I get everything posted right.

There were so many ideas for what I could do for a Kid's Christmas project and decided an advent calendar was perfect. Around our house presents rule - second only to presents is candy... combine the two and you can't go wrong! This advent calendar counts down the 12 days prior to Christmas with a little metal tin that can be filled with sweet treats (a good way to use up that Switch Witch booty), money, or little toys.

The base is a large wooden picture frame. I used paper called HollyDays by CTMH, it's retired now. I don't recall where I purchased the tins from, but they can be found lots of places.

Cover the frame with the HollyDays paper, the tins are then attached with pieces of Velcro so they can be removed. The numbers and letters are all cut out using a cricut. It goes together very quickly once everything has been cut out and layered.

Start on December 13th and count down, pulling the 1 off last when there is only 1 day left until Christmas Day! (Yes, my picture is backwards - it's showing the last 4 days instead of the first 4).

Merry Christmas!! Please continue on with the blog hop by following along to these links:

http://kaylaskraftinkorner.blogspot.com/

http://petalsofcathyslife.blogspot.com/
http://scrappingoodtime.blogspot.com/