Ooh, sparkly.

For the record, no, I didn't intend to make another post today. But I made up this bracelet on a whim & so have to show it off:
Isn't it purty? I know, I know, the picture's not too good. But when the only problem I have with a project is the way the photograph of it turned out, I know I'm doin' alright. (Dig my engagement ring too; nothing so boring as a diamond for this girl's best friend!)

The really cool thing about this? OK, there are two cool things. First is that I did the whole thing, from idea to completion, in less than 2 hours, while watching Monster Garage (though not paying much attention) and with about a 30 minute break to nurse Esther.

Second cool thing? The approximate material cost for this little bracelet is less than a dollar. Yep, you read that right. One buck. It's only an estimate, unfortunately. I actually had all the stuff on hand; have since before Esther was born. But the price on the bead package was 59 cents, and the floss typically can be had for under 30¢ (I bought it as part of a larger package of floss, and I don't recall either the actual price or the number of skeins in the package, so I'm just going off my memory of the price of stuff at Wal-Mart.)

Technicals~ I used: D hook, DMC craft floss (unlike embroidery floss, craft floss doesn't split), & faceted 6mm beads in a translucent turquoise. Here's a scan of the bracelet, which will give you slightly better detail (though of course it's a bit pushed out of shape since it's been flattened):
I had to mess around with the color balance on this scan to get the beads to be easily visible. In reality, the beads & floss are much closer together in color. In fact, I switched from my original idea of using blue floss to green floss because the beads are more green than blue.

Now, how did I make it? Fairly simple, actually. That's only 3 rounds of work there. First round was 50 chainless single crochets. Second round, where the beads are, was beadedDC, ch-1 skip 1 sc, then another beadedDC around. Third round was SCs all around again.

It's a bit looser than I really wanted it to be, but not so much that it will fall off. It's easy to put on, though.

Very pretty for such little cost & effort!