Crafting Fail

I'm trying to revive this poor blog, and to do so I plan on posting more entries from my phone. I'm excited because I will be able to be more spontaneous with my posts. This post right now is going to be about my current crafty fail. Recently I've been having a string of craft fails, most of them involving knitting somehow, but today it involves a project that I've done before. A while ago I told my sister I would make her a braided bracelet with black embroidery thread, and while looking through my crafting pile of crap I found some black embroidery thread so I figured I could make her bracelet right then! I got everything together, cut the thread and started braiding. I hadn't made one of these in a while so it took a bit for me to remember how to braid it onto the chain, but once I got it I flew through it. And then it happened.

I ran out of thread. Noooooooo. Guess I'll be running out to the craft store later today! In the mean time I'll be attempting work on my next knitting project- socks- which I've never done before. I don't know if this is a good idea.

Braided chain bracelet

I was browsing through Craftster a few days ago and saw a super cute bracelet made by fellow poster milesapart714 that she made based off a $300+ designer bracelet.  Her version was $3 and, in my opinion, much cuter.  I just knew I had to make one.  The next day I drove off to my nearest craft store and headed straight to the jewelry section.  Everyone that lives around me must have had the same idea because all of the short chains suitable for this bracelet were sold out, so I had to settle on buying a 60" chain which was thankfully on sale!  After gathering all the materials; chain, jewelry findings, a charm and embroidery thread my total came to $7 bucks.  A little bit more expensive than milesapart714, but I now have enough materials to make a few of those bracelets and more if I really wanted to. Here are some pictures of the making of the bracelet:

All my materials gathered up.  I used a darker silvery chain because it matches more of my stuff.

I taped the ends of the thread so it would be easier to thread through the chain

Here it is, finished!

Some close ups:

All in all, I wish I got a bigger chain but I do like how mine turned out.

I had some of the embroidery thread left over that was already bunched up and ready for more braiding, but not enough for another bracelet, so I tried my hand at doing something small... a ring! Here's a picture of it:

I hadn't sealed the knots yet with glue or clear nail polish because the bracelet didn't seem like it needed any, but the ring is already starting to unravel so I decided to be safe and seal them.

Big props to milesapart714 and her awesome tutorial!  Check it out here: http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=356098.0 and while you're at it, swing by their blog: http://www.studs-and-pearls.com/

Sailor's Knot Bracelet

In order to get myself back in the crafting groove I've been doing some quick and easy things like making simple jewelry and little amigurumi.  When I finish my crochet project I'll post it here, but for now I have an awesome bracelet to talk about.  Almost a month ago Etsy ran a "How-Tuesday" where Simone Tan (a.k.a Groundsel) explained how to make a sailor's knot bracelet.  I actually saw this post a few days ago and as soon as I finished reading it I grabbed the first skein of yarn closest to me and started to knot.  Here is the finished bracelet:

It's kind of small and skinny because I just used normal yarn.  I wanted to make something chunkier so I headed to my local craft store and bought some thicker silver rope stuff and some even thicker cording.  Here it is with the silver rope:

This one is my absolute favorite and I've been wearing it every day since I've made it.  The silver rope makes it look more "fancy" so I can wear it when I'm being more dressy as well as just wearing it casually.

Here they are next to each other on me.  I think this style of bracelet looks better larger.  This brings us to the cording.

This stuff is really thick, and unfortunately I didn't get enough of it to make a bracelet so that's going to have to come later whenever I find the time to go buy more of this stuff.  Luckily it's only like .29 cents a yard!  I think I'll probably make a fabric bowl with this cording I have now.  I've been itching to make one for a while.

Sailor's knot bracelet tutorial: Here!

Fabric bowl tutorial:  Here!