DIY Multi-Way Turquoise Necklace

As I mentioned in my "Christmas Do's and Don'ts" post, I made quite a few turquoise necklaces as gifts this Christmas.  My inspiration for these necklaces was from a site I saw on Pinterest: Mama Says Sew.  I did make a couple of necklaces almost exactly as directed on this great tutorial, as shown here:

But I didn't think everyone would like this style, so I also made a simpler style for some that looked like this:

I mailed off my first three or four necklaces and took a break, as working with seed beads can try one's patience.  Especially someone like me, who lacks patience in an almost embarrassing way.

With Christmas only one week away, I still needed to make five more necklaces.  At that point, it dawned on me that I could design a necklace that could be worn both of the ways shown above, as well as a variety of other ways.

The original necklace from Mama Says Sew is constructed of two sets of eight strings of beads, tied off at the end:

You then tied the strands in a Carrick Bend knot, twist the ends and attach your clasps.  This makes an awesome necklace.  Here is one of the ones I made in that style:

I took this idea one step further and instead of permanently attaching each set of beads to a clasp, I put small clasps at the end of each group of eight strands:

I then attached those strands to a larger clasp.

This allowed me to configure the two bead sets however I wanted.  You simply detach each set from the larger clasp, create your desired look and reattach to the larger clasp.  You can configure as a messy bunch of beads or in a Carrick Bend knot, as shown above.  Or, in a simple twist:

The two sets tied in a single knot shortens the necklace and makes a cute choker:

I am sure there are lots of other options as well, but I chose these four to share as ideas with the recipients of the necklaces.  I drew an example of each style on a card that was included with the necklace.  At some point, I will definitely be making one for myself...

Doing that many was a lot of work, but I don't think I would have discovered this fun way to make the necklace work multiple ways if I hadn't made so many of them!  Perhaps I should change this to a Christmas "Do"...

Christmas 2011 In Review: Do's and Don'ts

1. DO find a super cute outfit for your 18-month-old son and take LOTS and LOTS of pictures of him.

2. DO show your family how much you love them by making fun homemade gifts.

Homemade Stationary

Mailing Kits: personalized contact list and return address labels, homemade stationary
and a book of stamps all wrapped up in a cute box!

3. DON'T choose to make seven homemade necklaces that require twelve strings of seed beads each and a complicated sailor's knot.  The recipients will love them, but you may find yourself feeling suicidal at some point during the creation process.  (They turned out beautifully, but A LOT of work!)

Pretty necklace!

4.  DON'T ask family members to chip in on a gift for your husband then lose the checks they give you.     Yep, I did that.

5. DO make lots of yummy goodies for family and friends in the days leading up to Christmas.  My personal favorite from the 12 Days of Sweets/Cookies: Chewy Ginger Cookies and Butterfinger Truffles.

6. DO use your cherished family photos to send holiday cards to those you love.

From the previous post "K thinks Santa needs to get out of town."

7. DON'T buy special holiday address and return address labels for your Christmas cards, unsuccessfully mail merge your contacts spreadsheet multiple times, forcing you to enter 100 addresses manually onto the labels, and then forget to put Christmas cards in some of those envelopes.  Yes, I did that, too.  

Sorry, Aunt Marian...

8. DO have twenty family members over for dinner on Christmas Eve, organize a delicious menu and then delegate the making of most of the dishes to others.

Appetizers, including BA Party Mix, made by yours truly

Holiday Ham with Riesling and Mustard (made by hubby Matt)

Cheesy Potatoes (made by mother-in-law, Karen)

Pickled Crudites (made by yours truly)

Apricot Earl Gray Jam Tart (made by Kate and Courtney)

9. DON'T wait until almost a week after Christmas to create your Christmas blog post.

10.  DO close out your delinquent Christmas post with more pictures of your adorable son.

Triple tickle attack!

Happy boy!

That's a Wrap

I saw some adorable, inexpensive ideas for wrapping gifts in Martha Stewart's holiday issue of "Living."  I couldn't find the specific article on her website that was the inspiration for what I ended up doing, but there are lots of other great gift wrap ideas on her website.

Here's what I decided to do.  For smaller items, such as gift cards and ornaments, I used plastic, fillable sphere-shaped ornaments, tinsel, gift tags and ribbon.

These turned out really cute and can hang on the tree on the days leading up to Christmas.

For larger items, I opted to use brown craft paper, white, green and red streamers, ribbon (some solid color, some more colorful) and cute gift tags.

Fun and inexpensive...