My First 5k!

Today was a good day. Today I ran (very slowly) my first 5K at the Virginia Highlands Summerfest.
I did it with my friend and LTA sister Laura, who is a much better runner than me. Laura finished the race in about 24 minutes and I did it in about 34.

We got to Virginia Higlands very early in the morning to register and get our number and t-shirts. We waited about for about 45 minutes until the race started. We were actually pretty excited for it to begin.

         

There were 1400 runners at the race so it was pretty big. There were kids as young as seven years old. 

There were lots of dads running with their babies in those very cool running strollers. I thought that was the cutest thing.

                                            

The actual race was not too bad but the neighborhood had a lot more hills than I expected. That made it kind of tiring. It started at 8:00am so it was already a little hot but not as hot as it has been in the last few days here in Georgia. All in all, I enjoyed jogging around the highlands. 

After the race there was a tot-trot for babies and toddlers, which was totally adorable. 

Laura and I stayed for a bit, ate some oranges and bananas and waited for the results of the race. The overall winner was a woman. She finished the 5k in 18 minutes and she is 16 weeks pregnant. I was impressed. 

The next 5k I will do in on July 9 in Athens, Ga. Until then I leave you with a picture of me after the race looking tired and sweaty. 

                                            

"Friendship" Anklet

Last week I spend some time with my 8 year old cousin and she asked me to make her a bracelet from a little book I gave her last year that has all kinds of bracelets designs for kids to make. We picked a twisted friendship bracelet to make and it came out great. 

I decided to make another version of this twisted bracelet but make it into a anklet. I always wear an anklet in the summer. They make me feel like I'm in some kind of tropical place when I wear them. 

Since I am not eight years old I decided to use black for my bracelet and tried adding some embellishments to make it look a little bit grown up. 

To make this bracelet/anklet you need a cord or thicker threat as the core threat and threat of any color to tie around it. It can be multi-color like my cousin's bracelet (above) by tying all colors together and alternating threats as you go. I am using black threat only for this particular anklet. 

To start, tie the threats together. Then hold the knotting thread (black) in your left hand, take it over the core threads or cord (white, in this case) and back under making a loop around the core threads, pull this loop up tight to the top of the core cord.

I added some golden hoops to the white cord as an embellishment when I was done with about 1/3 of the desired length. 

After adding the desired embellishments finish the rest of the bracelet by following the first step over an over until reaching the desired length. 

I actually really like how it came out!

                                              

Braided Necklace

I saw a braided necklace at Forever 21 and thought to myself "I can do that!" The necklace had some beads, a thin chain and leather or some kind of rope. To create my own version I used:

Glass beads in a bronze color:

A chain and a thin leather cord:

And some kind of clasp to finish the necklace:

The steps are to simply braid the three strands (leather, beads, chain) together and then tie at the ends with the clasp. The chain that I used was not the best because the hoops were too long so it was not easy to braid and the braid does not look smooth. If you do this necklace, try to use a chain with all hoops of the same size also to make the braid look sharper. 

I am not very happy with the results because it doesn't really look like a braid. But I may still wear it sometime any way. 

Salmon Burgers

I have an awesome boyfriend that often cooks for me. A few weeks ago he was watching Paula Dean make salmon burgers on TV and he decided to make them for me and my sister.

Here is the link for the recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/salmon-burgers-recipe/index.html

We baked sweet potato "fries" and made a simple baby greens salad to go with the burger.

I like to be different and difficult so I used an italian 7-grain baguette instead of a bun. It was delish!

Jean Shorts

I saw this picture of Leah Michelle and remembered that I had some boyfriend jeans that I don't wear anymore because they were too ripped around my knees and I look a little homeless wearing them. So, I decided to turn them into shorts. 

Since my legs don't look like that I can't really wear shorts that short so I will make my shorts look something between Leah's and these other shorts.

This is a very easy project. All you have to do is take the jeans and measure how long you want them to be. Since my legs are a little big I need my shorts to be about 6 or 7 inches long.

Cut them longer that 6 or 7 inches if you plan on rolling them up. After cutting them make sure they are the length you want and then roll them up to make them a little shorter.

After folding the jeans two or three times sew the sides of the shorts to keep the rolled up ends from unfolding.

The last step is to use and iron to make sure that the "rolled up"effect stays in place. 

I am no Leah Michelle but they came out pretty good!

Cord Bracelet

I decided to start my DIY summer by making something easy. I decided to make a bracelet based on one I saw on honestlywtf.com a few weeks ago. I bought a white cord and some spacers from Industrial Chic at Michael's.

I started by cutting three strands of white cord and tying them together with a knot. 

I braided the three strands in a simple braid and then I started adding the spacers one by one. Before I braided the far left strand I pushed in the metal spacer and then braided the middle strand and added the next metal spacer before braiding the far right strand. I repeated this step three times. 

I added six metal spacers or embellishments and then braided the cord by itself before adding six more embellishments. 

To finish the bracelet I made a hoop on one end and a triple knot on the other.