Christmas present for my Mom

I was doing some browsing at Hobby Lobby when I came across a Martha Stewart family tree set of stamps.Packaged so cute in a wooden box. You can customize it any way you want to, there is a tree stump stamp, various branches, 2 leaf shapes, & ones to fill in the family names. I thought it would be super cute to get an 8*10 frame & do the family tree on some pretty vintagy-looking paper. 
               

This looks simple right?? 

Decided on this paper, really didn't like the roses but planning on trimming paper & cutting it out. 

My daughter helping me fill in the empty spots where the ink didn't get pressed down all the way. 

Ok. Thumbs down on my penmanship skills. And the fact that I had to call my sister to get everyone else's anniversary dates, & even some birthdays. Total Aunt Jana failure moment right there. ( My sister is expecting baby #3 in 2 weeks, notice blank circle on left, no that was not an accident)

 See how my tree spread onto the part of the paper I was going to trim away? Sadly, I think this was a practice one that will have to be discarded. I will go shopping for more card stock in a print that is not so busy & doesn't take away from the tree. Thought I would share attempt #1 at a cute, handmade gift idea! 

Merry Christmas! 

I made a necklace

 I have been wanting a brightly colored statement necklace, I have seen a few I have wanted in Anthropologie & a few on the Stella and Dot website. The Anthropologie prices were ok, but the other? Not so much. So I hit up Hobby Lobby to see what kind of beads I could find, I found these dark jade/ light turquoise beads & decided on these. The hard part where I had trouble deciding was finding the smaller beads I wanted. They have every style & color imaginable & it was a tough choice! These are a metallic grey hematite, I got some faceted & some round smooth. They are heavy!

Here is the pattern I was going with first, doing an alternating pattern... 

 Then I changed my mind, I thought it looked too uniformed & orderly & I don't like that.

I'll just keep it simple with this pattern, we will see how it looks! 

Tried to combine both strands on the side & turn it into a single strand? UM no, stringing both silk cords into one small bead turned into a huge headache, removed the combined strands & decided to keep them separate. 

 I have a plastic storage container full of unwanted & broken jewelry, whenever I decide to do a project, I try to recycle pieces, hardware & beads from these so save money & to reuse what I have! I found an old wooden pendant necklace with a lobster clasp, so I just took the clasp from that necklace to use on my new one.

Starting to look better...

I was not trusting my knot skills with this silk bead cord, I thought I needed some kind of backup. The only thing I could think of is clear nail polish. Just maybe if my knots suck & want to come untied, that this might harden around it & keep my beads from falling all over the place when, or IF it wants to break. Hopefully not. Hey, whatever works! 

Oh & I had to use pomade on the ends of the cord, because the twisted strands were becoming unraveled & separating & it was starting to become impossible to put the round hematite beads on! LOL the pomade worked like a charm, I might be the only person needing nail polish & pomade to make a necklace. I know, it's strange. But it worked! 

I'm done! My dress form is modeling my finished piece. It turned out pretty, it is heavier than I thought it would be, hopefully my recycled clasps are heavy-duty enough to hold these strands. 

If I can make a necklace, anyone can! It's always fun to try something once & see how it turns out. Who knows, you might have a hidden talent just waiting to come out & you can start the next Stella and Dot or Silpada! I just saw this MARCHESA necklace on Stella's website, I have decided that I love this & this might be my next DIY project!

 Some other jewelry brands I love are Fossil  Nine West American Vintage, & Lucky. There are some super-cute beaded wrap bracelets on the Lucky site. I seem to gravitate towards bohemian, vintage-inspired designs. I love jewelry!