More Beaded Bracelets

I’ve been on a real beaded bracelet kick lately. I think it’s finally calmed down, for now, but I’ve got a couple of new bracelets in the shop that I wanted to share with you!

The first one is another multi-strand bracelet. I love the turquoise and coral color combo, so I had to make a bracelet with these colors. Click here to check out my multi-strand bracelet tutorial if you’d like to try your hand at it. For those who aren’t so much into DIY, you can check out the listing on Etsy here.

Turquoise, Coral, and Silver Multistrand bracelet

The next bracelet features one of my favorite materials: goldstone. This sparkly man-made stone is so interesting and eye-catching. It was tough to list this one and not keep it for myself, so I may have to make another just for me.

Goldstone Nugget Bracelet

Check it out on Etsy here.

What do you think? What sorts of beads/materials would you like to see made into bracelets?

Related articles

• Multi-Strand Bracelet on Etsy (jewelsforall.wordpress.com)

 

Martinez BBQ and Music Festival

I know that the majority of my readers are female, but for the guys out there, I hope you all had a great Father’s Day. We celebrated by going to the Waterfront Park in Martinez for their BBQ and Music Festival. It was a pretty warm day, so neither of us felt like having bbq, but we did enjoy walking around checking out the vendors and listening to the music. Penny even got to go on one of the rides! Since she is so prone to motion sickness, we tried to find the gentlest ride available. They had a cute little helicopter ride, and Penny loves helicopters (she calls them “helitockers”), so she chose that one. We were so proud of her for going all by herself!

Since we didn’t eat any bbq, I told my husband to pick a restaurant he wanted to go to for lunch. He picked out a Mexican restaurant near his office. It was yummy, but Penny was worn out and complaining of a tummy ache, so we came home.

Here are some pics of our day:

My little girl

On the helicopter ride!

BBQ!

Martinez Waterfront Park

Cool boat we saw near the marina

Not feeling well at the restaurant

What did you do to celebrate Father’s Day?

Multi-Strand Bracelet on Etsy

Remember that multi-strand bracelet tutorial I did a few weeks ago? Well, I’ve made another one, this time to list in my Etsy shop! This one is more along the lines of nautical/patriotic, just in time for July 4th. The three strands are silver seed beads, red coral chips, and blue cylindrical beads, and they are joined together by a nautical rope-style toggle clasp.

Click here to check out the listing on Etsy.

And don’t forget, my sale on WoogieWoo is only going for a couple more days, through Saturday! Use coupon code NEWSHOP to save 20% off your total purchase. This bracelet is listed there as well, click here to view it, and click here to see the entire shop.

 

Trying Brussels Sprouts

Who here has always hated Brussels sprouts? I have! Actually, I can only remember having them once in my life, when I was a kid, and I did NOT like them. But then, I’ve never been a huge fan of vegetables in general. I’m more ok with them now as an adult, especially now that I want to teach Penny healthy eating habits.

Lately my husband and I have been trying to incorporate new, fresh veggies into our meals, since we kind of have a tendency to get stuck in a food-rut (sometimes it’s just easier to cook up some frozen mixed veggies). So when I saw this recipe from Domestic Superhero for Sriracha-glazed Brussels sprouts, even though I always remember hating them, I had to try it. Because Sriracha is pretty much the best thing since sliced bread. It is very spicy, so a little bit goes a loooooong way, but it is good on everything. I put it in breakfast burritos, quesadillas, fish tacos, rice, humus, sushi, I even mix it with ranch dressing to make a sandwich spread! I used to only see it in specialty food stores, but now you can pretty much find it anywhere (check the “ethnic” section of your grocery store, you know, where they keep the super-ethnic salsa). So anyway, I figured, how bad could Brussels sprouts be if they’re smothered in honey and Sriracha sauce? So we tried it!

Chopped Brussels sprouts

Honey-Sriracha glaze

The verdict? We LOVED the glaze. Sweet and spicy and yummy. My husband liked the Brussels sprouts ok (he’d actually never had them before), but I still just don’t care for the taste of them. Just personal preference I guess. But, at least I can say I tried something new! I think I’d be willing to eat them again, but I might make more glaze.

So, if you do like Brussels sprouts, or if you want to try them, I would definitely recommend this recipe! I’m gonna figure out what else I can put this glaze on…chicken?…

4th of July Firecracker Craft

It’s hard to believe it’s less than a month till July 4th! I love this time of year. I love it even more now that I live in a place that isn’t as hot as the surface of the sun, so I can actually enjoy all the summer activities that everyone always talks about.

Neon and bright colors are definitely “in” this summer, but there’s nothing wrong with a little patriotic red, white, and blue, either. I got this firecracker kit from Pick Your Plum (I seriously should just hand them my husband’s paycheck every two weeks, but I guess my family should eat once in a while ), but this would be so easy to replicate with some unfinished wood blocks and a star from the craft store. Some twine, wire, and acrylic paints, and you’ve got a cute, rustic 4th of July decoration!

You’ll also need some paint brushes

This was a fun project for Penny to help out with, since all we had to do was paint the star and wooden blocks. She could just go nuts with the paint (I smoothed it out when she was done).

A St. Patrick’s Day shirt to make a 4th of July project.

Penny painted the star and the blue block!

While we waited for the paint to dry, I took the wire that was to be the fuses on the firecrackers and wound them around my paintbrush. I thought this looked cuter than just plain wire sticking straight out of the blocks.

When the paint was dry, I stuck the wires in the tops of the blocks. They already had holes drilled in them, but if you’re doing this from scratch, you’ll have to make the holes yourself. Then I used some hot glue to attach the star, tied the twine in a little bow, and our project was complete!

I’m so glad Penny is getting big enough to help with some of our projects! It’s nice to see her take pride in her work. What do you think? Do you usually decorate for July 4th, or keep it pretty low-key?

New Shop (and Sale!) On WoogieWoo

Don’t worry, I haven’t given up my shop on Etsy, I’m just trying something new! According to their website, WoogieWoo is “A marketplace and e-commerce software combined. Shop thousands of independent shops or open your own shop for free. A place to buy and sell fashion.”

Yup, it’s free! You only pay 3.25% when you make a sale. And they have an Etsy uploader so you don’t have to spend hours copying and pasting (especially if you have a lot of items like me). Since my impression is that this is relatively new, I’m not sure how much traffic my shop will get compared to Etsy, but since it’s free, it can’t hurt!

And to celebrate the opening of my new shop, I’m offering a special sale through Saturday! By using coupon code NEWSHOP, you’ll save 20% off your total order! Remember, this is for my new WoogieWoo shop, this coupon code will not work in my Etsy shop.

Click here to check it out! Have any of you ever heard of/used WoogieWoo?

Metal Stamping: Family Initial Necklace

Yesterday I finally tried my hand at metal stamping. I got an alphabet metal stamping set from Pick Your Plum a while ago, but I didn’t have anything to stamp until this week (I found some inexpensive aluminum tags from this shop on Etsy). Since this was sort of an experiment, I wanted to do something easy, so I decided on my family’s initials.

If you’re interested in trying metal stamping, the supplies are pretty basic:

Metal stamping set, small hammer, something to stamp

It took a little trial and error to figure out how hard to hit the stamp. If you hit the crap out of it, the tag will bend. If you don’t hit it hard enough, the letter won’t show up very well. One thing I figured out was that if I did bend the tag, I could tap the backside of it with the hammer to kind of straighten it back out.

I had three tags with my husband’s, Penny’s, and my initials on them, what to do with them? I decided to make a necklace. I was going to do something with each of our birthstones, but I didn’t have two of the three that I needed. So I decided to make a horizontal necklace. I put the three tags on an eye pin, but I didn’t like how much they slid around.

I thought adding some seed beads to the eye pin might help with the sliding.

That didn’t completely solve the problem, but I liked how it looked, so I decided to keep it. I added a chain and clasp, and my family initial necklace was done!

What do you think? Have you ever tried metal stamping?