About six months ago Mr.B bought me a beautiful leather wrap bracelet after he saw one in a post I wrote about beautiful jewellery on Etsy. I loved it. Then my friend who owns The Beaderie in Cambridge started making them in the classes she runs, and when I saw her finished bracelets I knew I had to try making some too. My lovely friend Nicky had just had a birthday and was due to visit me later that week, so I decided to make her one as a birthday present. I used two shades of blue and some shimmering grey for Nicky’s bracelet, and just all shimmering grey for mine. They were really very straightforward to make, so definitely give it a try, I’ve written this tutorial to be as simple as possible.

This tutorial will make a 5 strand wrap bracelet for an average sized wrist. You can adjust the length of the leather to make it bigger or smaller.

Equipment:

• About 200 4mm beads (adjust this amount according to the size of the beads you want to use and how many wraps you want)
• 2 metres of leather cord (I used 1mm brown leather cord)
• Beading thread (I used a brand called KO) choose a colour that matches your leather cord
• A thin needle that fits through your beads
• A metal button
• A structure to hold your bracelet in place while you are making it, see Step 1 below.

Step One:

First, you need to make a structure that will hold your bracelet in place while you make it. My friend uses two bulldog clips and a large piece of firm card. I didn’t have any clips or card, so rather than put off my jewellery making for another day I got resourceful and raided my scrap wood pile. I found a long thin piece of wood, hammered a nail into the top of it so half the nail was still sticking out, and then hammered two nails into the bottom, close together, again with some of the nail protruding. This worked really well for holding my bracelet in place while I worked on it.

Step Two:

Find the middle of your leather cord and tie a knot in it so you have a loop at the top. This can then be placed over the top nail or clipped onto your card with your bulldog clip, whichever you have chosen to use.

Step Three:

Secure the two lengths of cord at the bottom of your wood or card so that the leather cord is held in place and fairly taut.

Step Four:

Take about four metres of your beading thread (yes i know it seems a lot, but you’ll be doubling it over and it isn’t too much to manage, I promise!) and then thread your needle through it and double it over, securing the two ends with a knot. Now secure this thread to your top knot in your leather cord, attaching it to the back of the knot with a nice tight double knot. Snip off the end of the thread. Now you’re ready to start threading beads on.

Step Five:

Take your first bead, thread it through the needle, pull it to the top of the thread and then take the needle round the strand of leather cord and back through the bead, to the other strand of leather cord. Now go under this strand of leather with your needle, thread another bead on, pull the bead up, go round the second strand of cord and back through the bead, and keep repeating.

Keep on going until you run out of beading thread, then you need to tie the end of the thread to a leather strand securely with a few tight knots and re-thread your needle with more thread. To start a new length of thread I tie it to the leather strand above the last bead there, then thread it through that bead and tie it with another knot on the other leather strand and then start threading my beads onto it again. Some people glue the knots with a tiny blob of super glue or beading glue, you could do that if you are worried.

Step Six:

Once you have threaded on enough beads to wrap around your wrist five times (or the amount of times you want), secure the end of the thread by knotting it and going through the last bead a few extra times and knotting it again. Then tie a knot in both strands of leather cord close to the last bead, thread your metal button through the leather cord (my button had a big enough loop that I could get both strands of leather through it) and then tie another knot in the leather. Snip off any excess leather and you are done!

If you love the look of these bracelets but don’t want to attempts to make one yourself, you can always buy one!If you have lots of spare cash you can buy an original one from Chan Luu, or just browse her collection for inspiration with all her beautiful bracelets. If you’ve got a more normal average budget then there are lots to choose from on Etsy.

Here are some from Citrus Mangoes:

Metal wrap bracelet, $36 by Citrus Mangoes on Etsy

Orange crystal wrap bracelet, $24 by Citrus Mangoes on Etsy

Aren’t they beautiful?

The Boy already had a rail bookshelf on the wall above his bed for his Tintin collection, but when we changed his bed over to bunk-beds (for all the sleepovers he has) I decided to make a second rail bookshelf to put on the wall along the top bunk too. I like these bookshelves, as you can display collections of oversize books, and it’s easy for children to see which book is which.

I made these bookshelves quite easily using two strips of wood, one a bit narrower and thicker than the other. I glued them together with wood glue and then used little panel pins hammered in along regular intervals as well. I then attached the shelf to the wall using little brackets. It was very easy to contsruct. I haven’t painted the newest addition as I quite like the wood and The Boy’s room needs painting anyway so I might just paint it all in one go one day…

PS Don’t you just love Calvin and Hobbes?

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Like all young, naive parents-to-be, before I had children I had all these ideals and dreams about the kind of parent I would be, and the kind of children I would have. Most of them were, in hindsight, laughably unrealistic (my toddler would always be clean, I would never raise my voice, I wouldn’t need to use bribes as my children would want to do what I told them, my children would play with educational wooden toys and not watch television, and my children would never play with guns). Oh how I laugh at my naivety now! I wasn’t too bad, I have known much worse, and I think I sobered up pretty quickly once reality hit, but it took a while for me to shed some of my ideals.

One of the things I eased up on pretty quickly was the idea that I wouldn’t allow my children to play with guns, and that, if I never had them in the house they wouldn’t want to play with them anyway, right? Wrong. Little boys in particular, will make weapons out of anything, and being someone who likes to pick her battles, I did lots of research and decided that, in the grand scheme of things, a few toy guns and swords added to the dressing up box were not going to turn The Boy into a violent thug, or a gun-wielding psychopath or even someone who thought violence was acceptable. So I decided this was something I wouldn’t be battling over. Age-appropriate films and video games, on the other hand, I will be battling over.

One of The Boy’s best friends seems to always have a toy gun or sword on him, so when his birthday came up and The Boy asked me if I could make him some sort of gun holster I thought it would be a great idea. I searched online for a tutorial and all I found was this Snack Bandolier by WhipStitch, but it was easily adapted to turn it into a toy gun bandolier! I used denim from an old pair of The Boy’s trousers, and old maroon men’s shirt and some elastic I bought at a charity shop for 20p to make this.

The recipient of the Gun Bandolier was very excited when he opened the present, and his parents thought is was a great idea too, as his mum said she wouldn’t have to carry his guns around in her handbag any more Now I just need to make two more, one for The Boy and one for his other best friend.

My ideal kitchen would be big. Big enough to accommodate a table scattered with mismatched chairs, an old battered sofa where The Boy can curl up and read while I’m cooking, with a warm, homely, comfortable feeling. It will have lots and lots of storage (maybe even a pantry?), a nice big white farmhouse sink, shelves cluttered with pretty things and clear counters. A place for everything. Lots of functionality and clever little features. Welcoming and comforting. And no washing machine. I’ll have a utility room for that!

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Reminds me of the illustrations in the Bramble Hedge books I loved as a child

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And that concludes my Sunday evening dreaming. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Do you have a big kitchen, or do you long for one? What would your ideal kitchen be like?

After lots of internet searching, I finally came up with three projects that I thought we could tackle. Have a look and see what you think:

1. Recycled magazine bowls and containers that look like these:

2. Old Vinyl Records made into bowls:

3. Beads made out of cereal boxes:

A class of 34 ten and eleven year olds should be able to handle that, right? Over the course of five weeks? It’s not too much to ask is it? Well. I am begining to think it may be.

Last friday we began. I thought we’d start with the magazine bowls, as they were going to be the most time consuming. We cut, we folded, we glued, we twisted, the adults went wild with the glue guns. We worked solidly for almost two hours. And after all of that all I had to show for it was a very messy classroom, some very hyper kids, and one tray (yes, just one tray) of rolled up magazine spirals . And not even a full tray at that. Probably not enough for one decent sized bowl, let alone 34.

I have tried to grab free moments this week to frantically try to make more magazine spirals, and folded lots of pages ready for the children to make their spiral bases for their bowls tomorrow.

I am very worried though. I have four Fridays left to complete the projects, and I’ll be lucky if we get to finish the magazine bowls, never mind the other projects I wanted them to do! I am hoping that they will all be able to make a bowl out of an old record, I have a big pile of old worthless records kindly donated to me by a charity shop, and they are really quick and easy to make, but I think I will have to shelve the idea of making the cardboard beads. I wish I had more hours to do D.T with the kids at school, because there is no way we can tackle any of the more ambitious projects I think of within the time-frame I am allotted. Which is a shame, because it reduces D.T to nothing more than a bit of junk modeling in Primary schools, glorified art lessons rather than useful life skills. Shame really.

]]> http://soresourceful.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/have-i-just-bitten-off-more-than-i-can-chew/feed/ 12 soresourceful recycled magazine bowl recycled magazine dish old vinyl record melted to make bowls cheerio beads recycled magazine spirals http://soresourceful.wordpress.com/2012/01/18/a-world-where-legislation-comes-before-free-knowledge-no-thanks/ http://soresourceful.wordpress.com/2012/01/18/a-world-where-legislation-comes-before-free-knowledge-no-thanks/#comments Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:04:32 +0000 So Resourceful http://soresourceful.wordpress.com/?p=1181 ]]> Have any of you tried to go on Wikipedia today? If so, you might have been surprised to find that it has been blacked out, and will continue to be, for the rest of today, in protest against The US Congress, who are considering legislation (SOPA and PIPA) that would bring an end to free and open source Internet. Not only would Wikipedia be brought to it’s knees, but WordPress would probably also be closed down. To raise awareness, Wikipedia are having a 24 hour blackout, and I am in full support of them. Are you?  Learn more here.

You can also read more about it in the following articles:

The BBC: Wikipedia joins blackout protest at US anti-piracy moves

BusinessWeek: Google rallies opposition to Murdoch-backed anti-piracy bill

I don’t want to live in a world where the Internet is heavily censored and websites with user-submitted content cease to exist.

and the winner was…

Dilly Tante’s blog header. I love the origami letters. Click on the image to goto her very entertaining blog.

Congratulations Dilly Tanty, and thank you for being such a regular contributor to my blog comments. You win a little ruffled zip up purse and two little nesting dishes. I’ll be in touch

Well, Mr.B and I did, over the weekend, as we hung a gigantic wall map of the world in The Boy’s room! He was given the map of the world as a Christmas present and it is brilliant, thick, glossy and laminated (perfect for a boy’s room). Mr. B just wanted to stick it up with a bit of blu-tak, but I objected, on the grounds that we weren’t living in student digs and the corners would just end up peeling off the wall and hanging limp and sad, and I wasn’t about to let that happen. So off we went to B & Q to buy some wood trim and I showed Mr.B how these things are done
First we stuck the map to the wall using a glue gun, and then we measured our wood trim and mitered the corners (Mr.B got to use his dremel for this) before simply attaching the wood trim all around the map like a frame, first securing the wood to the wall with the glue gun, and then attaching the wood more permanently using small panel pins. The end result was really effective, and The Boy really likes it and has already stuck pins in all the countries he has been to. It looks far better than if we had just stuck it up with blu-tak! I think I might do the same with the poster The Boy has of American Muscle Cars. Total cost: £5 for 5 metres of wood trim. Pretty good!

At first we contemplated mounting the map on a large piece of cork or wood chip, but as our walls are all flimsy new-build plasterboard it would have been quite heavy and more trouble than it was worth. We’re not going to be moving out in a hurry, and it will be pretty easy to disassemble once we do move.