Crafting on the beach

We are just back from our vacation at the Outer Banks, rested and refreshed. The family that went with us had two little girls and I was excited to have young children to do crafts with again.  Having two boys, I never got to make beach anklets, so I planned to take some hemp and scissors with me and make them on the beach. Grace (5) and Sarah (8) were thrilled to do this. This isn’t really a craft for them to do.  They just helped find sea shells for the anklets.  But they loved wearing them.

Cut two strings of hemp rope (I used brown, because I already had it.) about 3 feet long.

Fold each string in half . One of the loops will be the loop at the end of the anklet. The other will slipknot to connect the strands together. Holding the loops  together like and x, fold the bottom loop over the top and pull out the 2 string ends of that strand. Pull to tighten.

It should then look something like this.  

I added a temporary larger loop onto the small one, just so I could hold it by my toe while I braided.  This worked pretty well on the beach. When I finished, I just cut off that extra loop.

Separate the strands into two on each side.

Cross the outer ones over the inner ones.  Then the left inner one over the right.This makes one “braid”. Readjust your fingers and repeat two more times.

I added shells sporadically with the one shown in the pictures, but I found that every 3rd or 4th braid, made a nice anklet.  Look for seashells that have a smooth hole in them and add one to the furthest right string. Cross the left double strand outside over inside an extra time where the shell  is added., the repeat the braid 3-4 times. Continue until you get the length you want your anklet to be.

Here was my first attempt at closing it (It didn’t last too long) so I’m not going to include direction.

 

For closing mine, I found a smooth pebble shell that had a natural hole in it.  For the girls, I made a nice larger knot at the end (it was larger than the one in the picture.)  When it went through the loop, the weight of the shells closed up the loop. The extra length of strings were cut off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And Here is the finished product:

 

 

 

Things I learned along the way:

• Don’t use thin shells! I tried to make mine with those almost transluscent pearly coins (Don’t know the names of shells). And they broke off very quickly. I thought if I were careful, they would last. They didn’t. I also mixed some thinner ones into the girls’ anklet, again they broke off. Luckily, no scratches, but I would keep them to sturdy  shells and obviously not give them to any little children.
• I really need to put moisturizer on, especially when taking close up photographs!