Beading Chan Luu Style Bracelets

Today I have E and R coming over for lunch and I am going to teach them how to make Chan Luu style bracelets. I learned how to make them awhile back at the Dancing Bear Indian Trader. E has been beading and making jewelry for a long time, but I owed her a favor so I thought I would share the knowledge I learned.

First off is lunch! It's warm today but my patio has a breeze and it will be beautiful for a nice outdoor lunch. I've decided on chicken salad on field greens, some summer fruit salad and Lemon-Lavender Mini Biscuits. Remember my lavender bush that I made lavender wands with earlier this week, well here is another use for those lovely purple blossoms.

The recipe is a Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade recipe. You start with 2 of the 7.5 packages of buttermilk biscuit mix, and then add a stick of melted butter and a cup of sour cream. I felt compelled to use fat free sour cream to go along with the stick of butter! :0)

Then add the zest of one lemon and the juice of half of the lemon. The recipe called for 1 tsp of fresh lavender - I just added one blossoms worth of lavender and then a pinch of Herbs De Provence. I wanted mine to be more herb than lavender flavored to go with our salad.

They are basically little drop biscuits that you put into a mini muffin pan so don't expect them to rise much. I sprinkled a few more lavender buds on the tops just to make them look cuuuute!

I presented them on a pretty covered plate. I find these covers at the Goodwill shop, they are the glass covers from the old wooden cheese boards that were popular what... 20 years ago? I can find one every time I go to the Goodwill, even if I throw away the wood part due to its condition, it's usually a steal price wise. They fit over the plate stands I make from old plates and candlesticks.

Anyway, the lunch was delish and just right for a summer day.... Here is the "official recipe".

Lemon-Lavender Mini Biscuits from Sandra Lee
Makes about 2 dozen

2 (7.5) packages buttermilk biscuit mix
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 TBL lemon zest
1 TBL fresh lemon juice
1 TBL water
1/2 tsp dried or 1 tsp fresh lavender (or herbs de provence)

1. Preheat oven to 350'. Spray a 24 cup mini muffin pan with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In a large bowl, add biscuit mixes; make a well in the center. In a small bowl, stir together sour cream, melted butter, lemon zest, lemon juice, 1 TBL water, and lavender. Add sour cream mixture to biscuit mix, stirring just until moistened. Spoon about 2 TBL dough into each prepared muffin cup.
3. Bake for 16 to 18 minutes or until lightly browned. (My mini muffin pan is a dark non-stick pan and I felt they were done at 15 minutes.)  Cool in pans on wire racks for 10 minutes. Remove from pan and cool 30 minutes.

Who is she kidding, I took a warm one out off the pan, put a pat of butter on it and ate it right away! YUM!

Now on to beading.....

We took a drive over to the Dancing Bear to get supplies and pick out some beads. R picked out some really cute pink and brown beads that are tubular in shape. I haven't made a bracelet in this style yet, but R's was so cute I will definitely be doing one soon.

You start by using a button on the end of a folded leather cord. Then SEW the beads between the leather cords until the bracelet is the length that you want. We will be doing only single wraps today so my friends can get the lesson down and finish a bracelet, but on the Chan Luu website you can see many of the multi wrap style and they are gorgeous!

E decided on some round 6mm beads on tan leather with some multi-blue beads, same technique just a different bead in the middle.

It's a really easy technique that I can't explain here, but once you get a few beads on it's easy peasy lemon squeezy. Just over and under with the beading thread and you can do it while watching TV.

I can't show you the one I made just yet as it will be getting sent off in the mail this week for a friends birthday!

.....But I can show you the picture of the finished ones I made when I first learned the technique.

The first bracelet is a Chan Luu style using thread instead of micro filament to sew the beads on.
The second bracelet is a fun side project that wraps twice around your wrist and is a simple
braid of leather and beads with the cutest flower button to close.

Summer Lavender

I have only one lavender bush this year but it has been blooming beautifully. Probably because it hasn't gotten extremely hot yet. I think lavender likes the cool foggy mornings. So with a bountiful supply of flowers I have been making lavender wands! It's good to cut the flowers from the plant anyway as it encourages more blooms. So if you would like to try it on your own, here are the steps I follow.

I choose stems from my plant that are rather long, I cut them in the morning when they are still supple. You need to have an odd number of stems. I had been using 13 but you can use 15 and in this project's photos I decided to try 19 which worked out very nice.

My favorite patio spot



My patio is covered and it is a lovely, shady, cool spot to enjoy making lavender wands in the summer heat. The breeze kicks up every once in awhile and the smell of the lavender as you make your wands is heavenly!

Gather your odd number of stems heads down. I try to line up all the tops very carefully, as this will be the top of your wand. Then you will want to pick off any of the stray lavender leaves that are on the stem. When I am choosing stems, I snip them above any that have lower blooms sprouting on them, but the ones that have just leaves I will go ahead and cut below the leaves if I can get a longer stem from doing so.

I save the buds that fall off while I'm working in a little bowl.
Later those can be added to a little satin bag to make a sachet!

Now you will want to tie the stems together right above the blooms. I like to use the twisty ties that come when you buy things that are attached to cardboard. They are a strong wire, but have a clear plastic coating over them so you can pull it fairly tight, and it won't show in the wand. I have used many other things for this step however such as the ribbon I wrap the wand with, a small rubber band or even just a piece of string.

Hold the bundle in your hand stems up and start carefully bending the stems down one at a time and placing them side by side to build your cage. Before during or after this step you will want to insert at least an inch of your ribbon into the bundle so that the end is buried into the flowers and the rest of the l yd length of ribbon is hanging loose and is ready to be wrapped. If you used the ribbon to tie the bundle, then just hide the tail.

Wrap the ribbon over and under each stem, carefully as they are delicate at this point. After you've come around once you will see that the second row should match up so that the ribbon goes over on the second row where it went under on the first row. Always keep your eye on the over-under pattern, if you missed a stem the pattern will be off.  The first row can be a little tricky, hang in there. You can see in the last picture above that after you get to about the third row the stems start getting nicely in place and it makes the weaving much easier!

Keep the over-under pattern of weave going around the entire bundle. Don't be afraid to pull it tight. As the lavender wands dry the stems will become slightly smaller so you want a tight weave to keep the lavender buds inside the cage. 

I haven't mentioned what ribbon I use, and it really depends on who or what the project is for and your piggy bank!  Lavender wands can be made as bridal shower gifts, thank you gifts, just because gifts or just hung in your pantry to keep the flour moths at bay! So choose a ribbon that makes sense for your project. I like lavender ribbon, but for a bridal shower you could choose a color that matched the brides theme. Here I have used regular small gift wrapping ribbon, the kind that curls when you put a scissor to it, which is kind of a bonus! You can also use satin ribbon and I buy spools of it on sale at the Mart stores or the Craft stores pretty inexpensively.

When all the buds are enclosed, wrap the stems with a good amount of the rest of the ribbon. Tie the ribbon in a knot so that it won't come unraveled. You can curl the ends so that they look pretty. Add a separate piece of ribbon to create a pretty bow and curl those ends if you like also. Trim the stems at the bottom, I like to cut them at a pretty angle. Then add a pretty tag, I make my own as I love paper crafting as well.

Beautiful!