Break Out Your Friendship Bracelet Box

Do you remember when the best way to show who your friends were was by exchanging friendship bracelets? I do. It was circa 3rd grade and there was always a bit of friendly competition to see who could come up with the newest coolest style or pattern. All the girls would bring their boxes full of floss to recess and try knots until the bell rang. Times have changed and we no longer need some string on our wrists to validate a friendships but that doesn't mean that our old friend, embroidery floss, is obsolete. So dig out your box (I know you still have it) and get ready to craft. 

Stop by your nearest hardware store and pick up a nice piece of wood. Make sure that it is even with as few knots as you can find.  The men working there are always happy to cut down the piece to your specs. I primed and then painted a single coat of white paint. 

I then found a font I liked and blew it up to fit on the wood. I printed it out and taped the printed papers to the board and then set to nailing in nails about every inch. I used white nails but any would work. I just didn't want to have to paint my nails, too.

Once all the nails are in place, rip off the paper template. I decided to draw a quatrefoil border on as well.

To sting your letters, make a knot at any spot and cut the tail short. String as lightly or densely as you want and then tie off as you tied on. 

Once I was done stringing, I filled in the quatrefoil with basic black craft paint. 

That's it. Just throw some picture hanging hooks on the back and hang. 

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On ne voit bien qu'evec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.

When you have a big white wall like I do that you can't paint, what's a girl to do? Big art - that's what! When I was at Michael's craft store the other day I spotted a large canvas in the clearance area. The catch - it had a giant zebra head on it. Apparently this was appealing to some, as was evidenced by the women who fawned over it when I was taking it out to my car, but it wasn't really by style and didn't go with the french theme I have going on in my living room. 

This project starts as almost all of mine do - with primer. I primed the canvas (front and sides). You could probably skip the primer if your base spray paint is darker but since mine was silver I wanted to make sure nothing showed through. 

Then I picked out one of my favorite quotes from the French book Le Petite Prince. I used a Xylon cutter to cut out my letters in the font I wanted, though you could probably go to any scrapbooking store and use their die-cuts. Or, if you have a lot of patience, you could print them off the computer and cut them out. I would suggest using a card stock thickness so that the edges don't peel upwards with they get wet with your second coat of paint. I then used Krylon Easy-Tack (a semipermanent / repositionable adhesive) to place the letters. I am a bit OCD so I used masking tape to help keep things level.  If you're going to go something, you should do it right, right?

Then it was time for the second coat of spray paint. I used Krylon Indoor/Outdoor Satin but you can use anything! Some brands tend to have more variety in color selection. I wanted to keep the sides silver so I used masking tape to protect them. 

I peeled off the letters and masking tape and c'est fini!

"One can only see clearly with the heart. Everything essential is invisible to the eyes."

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Flea Market Finds: Magazine Rack

I love magazines but I have this bad habit of getting behind and letting them build up. Do you have this problem too? There just don's seem to be enough hours in the day! This post is in celebration of being done with my 10 weeks of my surgery clerkship. Now that I'm in my third year of med school I am in the clinics/hospital full-time (40-80hrs/wk) and then I have to go home and study and prepare for the next day so I am ready to be pimped (med school lingo for attending physicians drilling you with questions to make sure you have read the appropriate journals, books, etc.) This leaves little time to read about the latest celebrity gossip, check out the fashion "Do's and Don'ts," let alone actual magazine articles. My pile was getting quite large so I decided to do something about it. I had seen something like this on Pinterest before so I can't claim to have originated this idea. 

I had been keeping my eye out for a fun shutter for this project but hadn't found anything yet. Then my mom went to the Springfield Flea Extravaganza and found this salon-style swinging shutter door for $5! She's the best! 

I forgot to take a before picture but it looked something like this but with a worn varnish instead of paint:

I sanded it down to a even surface and sawed out every other slat with a small hand saw. I then painted it with primer followed by two coats of paint. And that's it! Just make sure to let it cure for a few days so that the print from the magazines doesn't transfer to the rack. Just slide in some magazines and Voila!

Here's the final product:

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Baby, It's Cold Outside! Crocheted Infinity Scarf

I'm a summer girl through and through but living north of the Mason Dixon means that I can't escape the snow. The best thing I can do is dress warmly (quite a challenge during last year's polar vortex and record snow fall) and hope that Punxsutawney Phil declares a short winter. Speaking of last winter, I had a lot of time where I didn't want to brave the sub-zero temps which left me lots time for girls nights, movie nights and crafts.

That brings me to today's post: The Fast & Easy Infinity Scarf.  This a super easy project, even if you are new to crocheting, and will only take an hour or two. It makes a great quick and inexpensive present (it only costs about $5 for the yarn - Hobby Lobby, Michael's and Joann all have good selection) and what girl (or guy) doesn't love a scarf in the dead of winter to protect what their parka won't cover?

So let's get to work!

You will need to pick up a "bulky" weight size 5 yarn (this one is really soft and has nice depth) and a size M or N crochet hook. On subsequent scarves I used other brands but tried to stick with size 4 or 5 and the same or longer yardage. One of the things to remember as you do this is to keep your stitches loose! For this pattern you will work in rounds. You may have to do one less row/round depending on how long your yarn is, or you can make a wider scarf by using a skein and a half. 

Here is the pattern (click the stitches to see how-to videos):

~ The first Chain 2 or Chain 3 of each round counts as the first stitch

~  Round 1: Loosely Chain 78 & Join chain with slip stitch

~  Round 2: Chain 2, half double crochet in next chain and each chain after all the way around. Join with a slip stitch to the first stitch of the round. 

~  Round 3: Chain 3, double crochet in the next stitch and each chain after all the way around. Join with a slip stitch to the first stitich of the round. 

~  Rounds 4-9: Repeat Round 2.

~  Round 10: Chain 2, half double crochet in each stitch all the way around.

~  Finish off and weave ends in to hide tails

Here you can see the difference between using a skein (grey) and 1.5 skeins (purple). The wider and looser you want your scarf to be the more yarn you will need.

This was my first crochet project in a few years so I had to Youtube how to do the stitches again but this is a really easy pattern for beginners because there are very few different stitches required for this project.

I ended up making like five or so of these as Christmas presents, for my family and myself last Christmas break while watching Ally McBeal (I know, I'm about 2 decades behind the ball here, but it's great!)

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