Erica doesn't like wearing shoes.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE shoes. They look wonderful in stores & magazines, on other people's feet and in my closet. I just don't like to wear them on my own feet. I grew up barefoot because no shoes were allowed in the house (thank goodness Wes agrees with me on this one so we live in a no-shoe apartment). I would walk around everywhere barefoot if I could. I'm one of those weirdos who doesn't think being barefoot in public is gross. Walking barefoot on fresh grass or on the beach is the best feeling ever. EVER!!

Anyway, while I was recovering from surgery a couple of weeks ago, I had the sudden urge to make beaded jewelry. I'm not a jewelry maker nor am I a bead crafter. But, I had a few beads and some elastic from when I was younger left over in my craft box. Even though I don't like to wear shoes, I really enjoy adorning my feet. In my high school years, I would draw all over my feet with gel pens. When I was into henna, I drew all over my feet with that. I used to wear toe rings (but those things are uncomfortable so I stopped) & I always have at least one anklet on. So naturally, I gravitated toward foot jewelry.

(this has also been a shameless excuse to show off my Kensington tattoo)

Beaded anklet tutorial:
 
       Materials needed - beads, elastic & charms (not necessary)

1. Measure the elastic.
       Start by wrapping the piece around whichever toe you wish to wear this on. Wrap around your toe once, pull across your foot and wrap around your ankle once. Leave some slack (for tying knots) and cut.

2. Tie a loop knot around your toe (the loop should be the size of a toe ring). 

       I left some slack so it was a little loose but I planned on making these as gifts for people with larger feet than mine. (I have creepy slender feet with really long toes >.> ) All of my pictures will look loose but you should measure for the size of your foot.

Please don't think my yucky dry hobbit feet are gross!

3. Bead the elastic part that will stretch across your foot. When you get to your ankle, tie a knot to section off the foot part and the new part that will be the anklet part. You will have tied your elastic into three sections by now: toe, foot and ankle.

       I put charms on two of mine at this step (not pictured but its an option). For this one, I saved the charm for the anklet part.

4. Bead the remaining elastic. I added the charm here (I forgot to count and measure the beads around my ankle so the charm isn't quite in the middle where I wanted it. Advice to you: plan out your bead and charm pattern so everything lays right when its finished.) Leave about an inch unbeaded to tie the final knot.

     Also, This entire project will be easier to make if you're wearing it as you make it.

All done!!

 

I made three of these... one is for a friend who will be vacationing on a beach soon, another is for a friend who lives driving distance from a beach and I'm jealous of them both. LOL But, I had to make one for myself too even though I have no beach opportunities coming up. A gal can dream...

Lynn and Erica will reunite in 2015!

Lynn and me at her wedding...my first bridesmaid experience. Throwing it back to 2011!

One of my best friends in my early adulthood is a wonderful lady named Lynn. She worked in the Downtown OKC/Business District area at the same time I did. We would try out all the restaurants and events that popped up in and around downtown. I remember going to a Cirque du Soleil performance and AC/DC concert with her. It was a great way to fall in love with Oklahoma City. And now, I can't complain that there's nothing to do in the metro area!

Well, she got married and moved with her husband to Texas and then to Virginia.  We still keep in touch but we haven't seen each other in probably 3 years. We text and talk on the phone and try to write but its not the same. I've never been to the east coast so I thought, "Its about time I visited Lynn," and now we're planning a reunion in the spring! I'm very excited.... and when I get excited, I make stuff. My friends either think its a curse or love all their random gifts; I haven't gotten a definitive answer regarding their feelings yet, but I hope its the latter. For Lynn, I decided on a piece of statement jewelry. She didn't wear a lot of accessories but I do remember a few pieces she liked and she was a Stella & Dot consultant for a brief period of time.

So, here you go Lynn... I hope you like it!!

Statement necklace tutorial:
     Materials needed: pearls--or beads that look like pearls, hex nuts, wire, scissors, cloth, hot glue gun (not all materials are pictured and I changed my mind on the cloth at the last minute so its not the peacock cloth in the finished product picture...sorry, it look me three sessions to get this necklace right and then I blogged afterward.)

1. Lay out your pearls and hex nuts in to the pattern you want the finished product to look like. Count and make sure you'll have enough of the pearls and hex nuts. I had to play around with my pattern a bit before I settled on a final design.

2. String the wire through the pearl. Bend the wire into a knot at the bottom of the pearl. Then string a hex nut through. I looped the wire around each pearl and hex nut to secure them in place.

3. For my pattern, I strung all the rows of pearls and hex nuts independently of each other. And then used small pieces of wire to attach them to each other. I tried doing it all at once with one piece of wire but it all got tangled so I figured doing 7 sections would be cleaner.

 (Here is a work-in-progress picture. This took forever so I should have added patience to my list of materials! LOL I have the scissors there for a size comparission. --------> )




4. Now that the 'statement' part is done, time for the 'necklace' part. The last two steps are really six steps but they're super easy so I'm condensing them into two.

Hot glue the completed pearl/hex nut wire piece to a piece of cloth. I originally wanted it on a patterned cloth but I changed my mind and decided on a more simple cloth for Lynn. After gluing, cut the pearl/hex nut piece out of the cloth. Hot gluing it to the cloth ensures that it won't fall apart (which is good if you're like me and don't work with wire often).

5. Lastly, turning it into a necklace.

Cut the remainder of your cloth into six equal pieces (I wanted my necklace to be pretty short so my cloth was probably 8 inches each but you can totally do long, too.) Braid the six pieces into two pieces leaving about 2-3 inches unbraided.  Hot glue one braid onto each side of the pearl/hex nut piece. Necklace is done! And it even looks good on dogs! LOL

Sadie has a bright future in jewelry modeling!

Erica proudly works at Delta Dental of Oklahoma

This time last year, I was a Client Relations Representative and I worked with a lovely group of ladies. It was a good position and I did well. Now, I am a Marketplace Account Representative and I work with two even more wonderful ladies. I plan to make their Christmas presents but more on that later. This post is to showcase the gifts I made my coworkers last year.

I often buy too much material when I start crafts and projects. This idea came from having too much ribbon and too many beads. I looked around on Pinterest and other DIY blogs and saw these bracelets. While I was in bracelet mode, I also made travel bracelets for Wes and myself for when we went to Sydney. Two bracelet tutorials in one post. OMG! so exciting : )

1) Pearl and ribbon bracelet tutorial:

I suggest googling this and finding step-by-step pictures to accompany my instructions. It'll make it a lot easier.
Materials needed - wire, ribbon, pearls, scissors

1. Use as many pearls as about 3/4 the size of your wrist. Cut ribbon about 2.5 times the length you want the bracelet to be. Cut the wire about 1.5 times the length you want the bracelet to be. (I always use large numbers for measurements to stay on the safe side)
2. Poke the wire about 3 inches into your ribbon (the loose 3 inches will be what you use to tie it to your wrist). Work the wire into a knot where you initially poked it through.
3. String one pearl though the wire. Fold the ribbon into a small upside down "U" and poke the wire through the other end of the pearl.
4. String a pearl onto the wire and wrap the ribbon under the pearl.
5. Fold the ribbon into another small upside down "U" shape and poke the wire though the other side of the pearl.
6. Continue stringing pearls though, wrapping the  ribbon under and making upside down "U"s and poking the wire through the other end of the pearl until you're out of pearls.
7. Leave about 3 inches of ribbon and work the wire into another knot. Cut off excess wire.

2) Cord and hexagonal nut bracelet tutorial:

I suggest googling this and finding step-by-step pictures to accompany my instructions. It'll make it a lot easier.
Materials needed - cord or some type of tough string, hexagonal nuts (hardware stores call them hex nuts - lets call them beads) , tape & scissors

1. Use 16-20 beads plus one for the clasp. Actually, however many you want is fine as long as it's an even number. Grab the extra one to use for the next step. Cut three equal pieces of cord. I would use about 3 times the length you want your bracelet to be.
2. Tie the cord though one bead. Tape this bead down on a flat surface, I would recommend a table.
3. Braid about 1/4 of your string.
4. This next step will probably either sound very intuitive or confusing depending on how well you know how to braid. After you have a quarter of your string braided, start weaving the beads into the braid.  I've been braiding since I was very small and I probably couldn't give instructions on how to but I can give tips - string the beads tightly into the braid, string one bead after each cross over of string, braid very slowly. I don't know if its clear in the photo, but there's one full braid in between each bead.
5. After all your beads are weaved in, continue braiding the rest of your string. The beads should have taken up half your string so you'll have 1/4 remaining so, in theory, the first and last section of bracelet should be the same length. Mine didn't quite turn out that way.
6. Leave enough string to tie a loop knot at the end. The loop should be big enough to put the initial bead from step 2 though but not too big to where it'll fall through.

I apologize for the lack of pictures. They would have made the instructions a lot clearer. When I made these, I only had pictures but no instructions. Maybe if you find the DIY pictures online, you can use my instructions as a companion guide.