DIY Macramé Bracelets!!

 

 

Hiya guys!  Happy Sunday!  Hope you’ve all had a great week!

 

I thought that this week I would do a wee post on making macramé bracelets or friendship bracelets!  These little gems are easy and fun to make, and make funky and quirky arm decorations!

 

This easy technique of cord/string knotting can also be used for things other than bracelets!  You can see what I made using the macramé square knot in my ‘What you can do with leftover bits ‘n’ bobs!’ post, where I made wall hangings and wind chimes using this technique.

 

 

 

 

These are a few bracelets I made last year, before I started up my blog.  And, since I have come up with a few other ideas recently, I thought I’d do a post and show you all.  I did have to refresh my memory on how to do macramé and, as usual, I will show the link to the video at the end of the post.

 

I'm not going to go through all the steps in detail, as the video is pretty explanatory, but I will show you photos of the material I used and the end results of this DIY!

 

 

 

What I used:

 

·       A variety of bits ‘n’ bobs: beads, rings and studs.

 

 

 

·       Cord, or 100% cotton yarn in my case.  Jewellery cord is probably better for these kinds of bracelets though, but the yarn worked quite well.

 

 

 

·       A sewing needle, glue and a glue spreader.  The needle is needed to sew the ends of the yarn into the strap - PVA glue would probably be better for this just to keep the yarn from coming out of the strap then you wouldn’t really need a glue spreader. 

 

 

 

·       A ruler for measuring the yarn and masking tape to keep the bracelet secure while knotting. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Finished Bracelets!!

 

 

 

 

I more-or-less just followed the steps from the tutorial to make the bracelets.

 

 

 

 

The only thing I did differently was to make just one long strap for two of the bracelets and use some fabric studs to hook the stud onto the bead/ring, therefore creating a fastening.

 

 

 

  

 

 

Below, are two of the most common types of fastening for friendship bracelets - the adjustable strap with the charm/bead/design in the centre.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Like I said at the start of the post, these are the wee gems of the bracelet world!  Like the name says, you can make them for your fabulous pals!  For yourself too…you can all have matchy matchy ones!  Or, just make them for yourself if you want some quirky arm decorations!

 

I really love macramé!  I actually have this old watch with a broken strap and I think I might make a macramé strap for it…that’s an idea!!

 

Anyway guys, thank you SO SO much for reading!  I hope you enjoyed this post J and I will catch you all next Sunday!

 

Have a fab week and take care! Xxx

YouTube source:

 

DIY ♥ Adjustable Macrame Arm Party Bracelets! ♥ by Katrinaosity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJo4k7Tp1XQ

Funky nail art design!!

 

 

Hiya guys!  Happy Monday!  Hope the bank holiday is treating you well and you are out enjoying the nice (dry) weather!

 

Totally gutted that I couldn’t do my usual Sunday post to my blog yesterday!  L  I’ve just been super busy this week with work and starting a new job that I just ended up running out of time!  However it’s all published now and up on the blog, so…better late than never, eh?

 

So, as I said, I’ve not had much time to do a mega creative DIY project this week…however I did manage to do a wee nail art design!

 

If you have seen any of my photo posts on here or on Instagram, you might have seen that I quite like taking photographs with the whole focussed/out of focussed thing going on!  You can see this in my Earth Day 2015 post, where I took pictures of the sky and tried to capture the wee blobs of light caused by the sunlight.

 

Well I just found out this week (in a nail art video) that it is called bokeh – where you take photos with purposely out of focus little blobs of light.

 

 

 

 

This is a photography style which I guess many photographers use.  If you Google ‘bokeh’ photography you’ll see loads of lovely photos!

 

I really like bokeh photography!  Every time I have put up my Christmas tree in the last few years, I always take an out of focus photo of the sparkly lights (example above).  So, I guess I have been using this photography style all along without actually knowing what it’s called!

 

As I have said, I saw a nail art tutorial by a well-known YouTube nail artist cutepolish, where she creates this bokeh design on her nails!  I’ll include the link to the video at the end of my post.

 

So, this week I thought I would try to give this nail art a try and this is my recreation.  And, I got to use my practice hand!

  

 

 

To be honest, I got in a bit of a pickle because I’m not sure how to stick the nails onto the practice hand?  So, I ended up using small bits of folded up masking tape.  (I’ll have to work on this!)

 

 

 

 

I then just picked the polishes I wanted to use – mustard yellow, terracotta, mossy green and a wine red.

 

 

 

 

Before the colours were applied to the nails, I applied a base coat of white.  Then, once that was dry, I took turns to sponge on the colours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, this is what it ended up like!  I decided to have one of the nails just plain, so I used the mustard yellow colour for that.

 

 

 

 

For the next part, I followed the steps from the video, so I won’t go into detail.  See the photos I took when I was doing the nail art and watch the video for more info!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And this is the final completed look!  Quite cool, isn’t it?

 

 

 

 

 

Well, I hope you guys enjoyed this post, and as always thank you SO much for reading!

I’ll catch you all this Sunday for my next post!

 

Enjoy the rest of this week and take care! Xxx

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

YouTube Source:

 

Bokeh Nail Art! by cutepolish

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L2_m_In694&sns=fb 

 

 

 

 

Photo Post: Earth Day 2015!!

 

 

Hiya guys!  Happy Sunday!  Hope you all have had a fab week!

 

Not sure if you guys knew this, but it was Earth Day last Wednesday.  I decided, since I had the day off from work, that I would go for a walk to sort of celebrate the day and get in touch with nature and all that!  I spent the day chilling out and admiring (and taking hundreds of photographs, obviously!) some lovely and amazing things on planet earth!

 

So, I thought I would do a photo post this week to show you some of my pictures!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cuckoo flower or Lady’s Smock

 

 

Dog Violet

 

 

Lesser Celandine

 

 

Cuckoo Flower, Dog Violet and bottom right - Wood Anemone

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Corra Linn waterfall

 

 

 

 

 

Bonnington Iron Bridge 19^th Century

 

 

 

View of the Clyde on the Bonnington Weir Bridge

 

 

 

 View of Bonnington Weir Bridge

 

 

  

 

I kid you not, this is just a small chunk of the photographs I took that day!  Usually when I go somewhere new, I’ll always bring my camera and go camera crazy and take loads of photographs! My family and pals know what I’m like, haha.

 

Anyway guys, I hope you enjoyed this photo post, and as always thank you SO much for reading!

 

I’ll catch you all next Sunday!

 

Have a fab week and take care! Xxx