Family time

You all know how important family time is to me, so now I'm using my latest jewelry project to show it off literally.

While shopping for supplies to make these bracelets (specifically the metal cuff with the purple stone), I made two frivolous purchases, one being the petal-shaped metallic pieces for these earrings I posted recently and the other was this fun locket with a watch face on it. I couldn't resist the idea of pretending to wear a watch that keeps time, while instead, always having my family on my mind ... or in this case, on my wrist.

The locket was meant to be a pendant, but I thought it would be more of a conversation piece on my wrist, like a real watch. I guess it could have appeared to be a pocket watch necklace, similar to this one; I just opted to put my personal spin on it instead.

When making the mock watch, I decided to leave the loop at the top, in case my idea didn't go as planned. I just needed to find a way to incorporate it into my design, which I'll tell you more about when I get to that step.

To start, I used my metal and jewelry glue to attach the pendant to a silver plated bracelet with a plain flat plate on it. Once it felt secure, I moved on to decorating the rest of the band.

I kept it simple, weaving some black ribbon around it, similar to the barrettes my mom made me as a child (yes, I'm showing my age again; I wonder if I can pull off wearing them again). Since I was just using one color, I made it even easier by weaving only one ribbon back and forth to cover the bracelet's band.

I used the glue again to attach the ribbon to the first side of the band. Then I began weaving it back and forth, and over and under the parallel bands, as shown. Here is how it looks at the start of the weaving process, and below is at about the halfway mark.


I continued weaving until I reached the solid part in the middle of the bracelet. There, I cut the ribbon and glued it in place.


I repeated the same weaving on the other side of the band. I loved the results, but still needed to do something about the loop on top. It was too late to cut it off (I was afraid I might damage the rest of my work), so I added a sweet little bow.


And, for those of you who would like to see it on my wrist, here you go. With my cute little kids pictured inside, I guess you can say I wear my heart on my sleeve <3 :-)

Now for some more family time!

*****

Speaking of family time, we had a blast celebrating Dr. Seuss's birthday at our usual Sunday dinner. It was my sister Lori's idea. She surprised us, so I didn't get the heads up to bring my camera. Instead, I'll just paint a mental picture for you.

She took the time to decorate the table with Dr. Seuss books, toys and games (which the kids had fun playing), place cards with quotes (I brought ours home and snapped the pic above for you) and a fun cupcake display with Cake and the Hat Cupcakes and Truffula Tree Cupcakes (I managed to take a photo of a leftover Cat and the Hat today; here's an example of a Truffula Tree Cupcake). So cute and creative.

As you can tell, my extended family doesn't eat the same as I do, but they tried last night. My sister, brother-in-law and I tied for the most correct award predictions on Oscar night, so I had a big say in what was for dinner. We had a salad bar and green smoothie night. The brightly green colored beverages were perfect for our Seuss celebration, and much better than actual "Green Eggs and Ham." I still love the lesson in the story about trying new things, and I'm especially proud of everyone who tried the smoothies for their first time :-)

Anyway, I just wanted to share our fun with you. Did anyone else do something special in honor of Dr. Seuss? Who saw "The Lorax" and was it as good as I hope? I'm thinking about taking the kids to see it.