Nostalgia and adaptation

Having a 'tween is crazy. It's fun, it's energetic, it's really different. I first noticed that my parenting needed to adapt when we took a family vacation a few weeks ago. It was perfectly timed, as some of the life stress we were dealing with made me want to crawl into a tiny hole somewhere and hibernate until it was all over. Getting ready for the car, I bought little surprises and fun things for the kids. I mean, road trips get boring when you're little and have no say in the matter. As i started handing things out, I realized that I am stuck in a time warp where Squirt doesn't get any older.

The things I'd picked were PERFECT for Munchie, but too "immature" for Squirt. We're growing out of things like princesses, coloring books and Littlest Pet Shops. Now we're embracing things like having our own ipod, primping, boy craziness, and Britney Spears (heaven help me).

I'm trying to understand where she's at and have spent a lot of time thinking about the dark ages when I was young. When I was her age, I loved, no LOVED making friendship bracelets. They were easy, colorful, and best of all cheap. I didn't have much money so having something so personalized for so cheap was crazy exciting. So naturally, I chose to introduce her to this little world.

The bracelets I always liked the most were these macrame knot reversible guys. I found they were easily varied and frankly really fun. Besides, they were just enough different to be noticed and let's face it, at that age being a little different in a good way is exciting.

These use basic embroidery floss.

Measure out your floss. I use one strand of each color. How long to cut it will depend on how tight you tie your knots and how long you want it to be. For these I made 6.5 inch bracelets (not counting the looped end or the tails). I use the highly technical form of measuring holding the end of the floss in one hand, pulling it taut and measuring out to roughly the elbow of my other arm. This is about 4 feet.

Fold the floss over about 12 inches from one end and tie a loop. 

When I was a kid I'd safety pin this loop the the knee of my jeans and then tape down the string I wasn't using. Now that i buy my own clothes and don't want to ruin them I came up with something else :)

Slip the string into a plastic embroidery floss holder.

Slide the floss holder into the edge of the floss box.

Tape down the two shorter strands of floss. Trust me, it's easier if they aren't flopping around.

Now you're ready to start tying knots. Basically, we're just doing a series of square knots. (You can check here for more macrame knots)

To make a flat bracelet, pick one color floss. You will start with that color for every single knot.

Here, I started with the gray. I'll use colors to identify my strings so it is less confusing :)

Lay the gray string down the side and crossing over the top of the center strings (like a reverse "L"). 

Take the blue string from the other side. Lay it on top of the gray floss, then take the end of the string sliding it under the center two strands and coming through the loop of the gray. It should look like the top picture at left.

This is your first knot.

You will notice that the floss colors have switched sides. This is exactly what we want. Start with the same color again, lay it down and over the center strands (like an "L"), and loop the blue floss over, under, through the gray once again. 

This is your second knot.

Keep going until you've reached the length you want.

Then just gather all the loose ends together and tie a big knot at the end.

And voila! A completed macrame reversible friendship bracelet! Notice how on one side the gray is on the outside of the knots and on the other it's in the center? Yeah. Pretty groovy.

Or you can make them twisted...

Instead of always starting with the same color floss, always start on the same side (I start on the right) for your knots. The color you are starting with will switch, but if you're always starting on the same side you don't have to remember which color you are on.

Or you can make them color blocked:

The only critical change for color blocking, is at the very beginning. Instead of placing the loop knot 12 inches from the end, place it smack dab in the middle of the strings. Tape down the color you do not want to show and make knots with the others. If you do roughly the same number of knots for each color the strings will be about the same length when you are all done.

There really are a ton of options!

They may take a few minutes to get used to, but once you get the knots down they go crazy fast. AND they were a hit with the 'tween. (She picked the green/yellow one to go along with her love of UO. )

I whipped out about a dozen of these puppies and I think we've got two left. Squirt took them to school and handed them out to friends. They are friendship bracelets after all. Make one, make a dozen, the 'tweens in your life are bound to like them.

Button bracelets

My Squirt is not feeling well and doesn't want to eat or do anything. It's so hard when little people are sick. Especially when nothing really seems wrong but they just aren't themselves. Like me, she is an early riser and likes to be doing something first thing in the morning. Today however, she stayed in bed until 1:00p.m., only moving to the couch after I promised a movie.

To pass the time, we I made button bracelets with How to Train Your Dragon playing in the background. The process is simple, and there are about a million tutorials out there for how to do this. This is the way I approached it.

Cut a long piece of beading wire, I started with about 12-14 inches. Standard bracelets are 7 or 7.5 inches depending on thickness, but if you cut the wire too short to start with there will be guaranteed cursing while things fall off and fly around the living room.

Using a crimp ring, pass one end of your beading wire through the end loop in a 1-1.5 inch section of chain. This is a good place to use up bits and pieces left over from other projects or clearance sale costume jewelry. Pass the wire back through the crimp ring, pull it as tight as can be, and squeeze the crimp ring with your pliers.

Thread buttons on one or two at a time until you've got an inch or two strung. Take the loose end of the beading wire and slip it through the buttons until it's completely hidden. Keep adding buttons until you've reached the desired length.

Thread on another crimp ring and either a soldered jump ring or the end of the clasp (I did one with a link and one with just the clasp). Pulling as tight as you can to get the ring/clasp as close as you can to the buttons then squeeze the crimp ring with your pliers. Trim the wire tail to about 1 inch long and feed the tail back through the buttons. If you used a spring ring on the end of the bracelet, add the clasp now.

 I wanted something neutral but Squirt wears a lot of bright pink and other colors so we did one of each. Surprisingly after measuring around our wrists they turned out almost exactly the same length, which means we are finally to a place where we can share some things! I would worry about that but I buy nicer things for her than for myself so honestly I think I'm the one who benefits most from this :)

Button bracelets are fast, easy, cheap, and quite customizable. Plus, if you ever tire of them just snip the wire and use the buttons for something else. This would be a great activity for an older child's birthday party or rainy day activity.