The Accessorized Life: Pinterest Experiment : Take 1

We are Pinterest junkies. But, we pin a lot of stuff and then...it gets lost out there in the land of "I would love to try this one day." We decided that we would challenge ourselves. Each month we are going to try to make one of the items we've pinned on Pinterest.

This month? Nautical Knot Bracelets.

Nautical Knot Bracelet on Pinterest (*click on the image to go to the Pinterest post)

We found the directions here and thought that this would be a manageable project--something we could do and something that we would wear. So, we went on Amazon and ordered all of the parts to make this project.

We gathered at Stacy's house on a snowy Sunday afternoon, put Stacy's husband on baby duty, laid out all of our materials and got started...

STEP 1:

Cut the cord to 22" long.

First cut...we forgot to put tape on the ends, so it started to unravel. We put tape on the ends and cut again. Easy enough. So far so good. We did that 4 times to make enough cord for two bracelets. (Two grey, two midnight blue)

STEP 2:

Fold cord in half and make a loop.

Still easy enough! We are still feeling pretty good about now. (We had the pliers there just to hold the cord down for the picture.)

STEP 3:

Begin to make the knot.

Still easy enough. Just put one loop under the other. Now, make the knot...

STEP 4:

Make the knot

This is where the directions started to get dicey...they tried to explain how to make the knot, but then said it was easier to follow the pictures. Stacy couldn't do it. She thought she made a whole knot...but Lauren laughed at her. She made a half a knot. Lauren, on the other hand, was a champ. She made a whole knot....and then made a knot for Stacy.

Our knots (with directions in the background)

The completed knot

STEP 5:

Measure and cut

At this point, you take masking tape, mark off where you want the length to be and then cut. The masking tape is there to make sure that your cord doesn't unravel.

STEP 6:

Mix the epoxy

Mixing the epoxy? Check. Easy peasy pumpkin pie. At this point, we feel great. We are going to make lots of these...for friends, family members, ourselves...after all, they look like they're going to be super cute and it's been really, really simple so far (except for that knot thing...for Stacy...but who's counting?).

STEP 7:
This is where it all goes downhill...fast.

Put the epoxy on the cut ends

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. Oh boy, were we in trouble now!! At first we thought we were rockstars. We had this epoxy thing down. Then...we got it on our hands. And read that it was an irritant and caustic. Oops. (Stacy rushes to sink to quickly wash hands.) So, we got out the latex gloves and continued on.

Then we tried to move onto the next step...placing the cord inside the ribbon clamp. Oy...just oy. The website warns that it will try to wriggle out. That's an understatement. The epoxy is supposed to help keep it in. We got one side in, but that was an ordeal. We had to cut the cord because it was starting to unravel, despite the epoxy. Then, after we got it in, we realized we had epoxy all over our gloves and had to throw out our first pair and put on a second pair. We also realized there was some epoxy on the bracelet. It would dry, right? We then moved to side two...feeling like experts. Double oy. Then we realized our original epoxy had hardened and we had to make more. We did and then started to get the cord into the clamp...Stacy started to use the pliers to get the clamp down. Lauren kept warning her not to get her fingers, so Stacy gave Lauren the clamp. What did she do? Clamped her fingers. We got the clamp on and then realized...one of the pieces of cord had escaped. And the clamp was epoxied shut. Triple oy.

Then, Lauren realized the toothpick we were using to mix the epoxy and stuff the cord into the clamp was stuck to her finger.