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's first art night project...

Kensington looking dapper with my sewing kit, art box and traveling art kit

Those of you who know me in real life know I'm pretty old school.  I swear I'm 29 going on 50.  I love writing things down, like with ACTUAL pen and paper. I think the journal and Post-It notes are two of the gnarliest inventions. That being said, I've been jotting down notes for each Monday Craft Night entry and which projects I want to highlight. Well, tonight, I discovered that I can start a blog...jot down ideas, insert some pictures...and then save it as a draft and come back to it later! OMG!! I know you're probably giggling but I don't care; I'm proud of my discovery. LOL

This is extra great news because Wes is out with a buddy tonight so I have the whole apartment to myself to brainstorm.  And we'll be out of town next week so, presto, blog ideas done on a Thursday!! But you'll never know it's a Thursday because I won't post until Monday.  Okay, okay...I'm getting way too excited about this.  Now for the actual crafting part.

Festival of the Arts 2013... I went with a friend and as we were walking around the booths, I confidentially said, "I can make stuff like this! I craft, I'm artistic, I have hobbies..."  That really got us thinking so after the festival, I took us to the local crafts store and we bought these!



Then we planned a reoccurring craft night. One Monday at her place, one Monday at mine. We put our supplies in handy little "boxie" and off we go!! Dinner and crafts and girl time. What better way to relax on a Monday night? : ) My first project was this -

Kensington is having quite the photo shoot tonight!

Wire & Ribbon pencil holder tutorial-
Materials needed: wire (I got mine from Lowes), ribbon, scissors, something round that you want the shape of your pencil holder to be

1. Make the bottom of your pencil holder by shaping a circle out of your wire & criss-crossing more wire through the middle until it's mostly filled in.
2. Make the top of your pencil holder by shaping another circle.
3. Put your round object in between the top and bottom pieces. I used a bottle of vitamins to get my shape.
4. Take your wire and go crazy; connect the top and bottom pieces with wire until your pencil holder is sturdy enough to take the center object out.
5. Press down on the top so the wire bows out and the pencil holder is pumpkin shaped. Keep pressing on the wire until you get the exact shape you want.
6. Take your ribbon and thread it in and out of the wire, basically covering all the empty space.
7. Wrap ribbon around edge of top circle to form a lip around the pencil holder. I also used this to hide all the knots I tied with the ribbon and wire.

And you're done!! Here are some pictures of how tightly wound the wire and ribbon are. The first picture is the bottom, second picture is what it looks like from the inside and last picture is the outside.