School's Out for Summer!

For the first time in a long time, I have no place to be and nothing that needs doing on a deadline.  I thought this would be the perfect time to attend to my sad, little blog that has been suffering from a severe case of neglect.  I must say that I am truly in awe (and very much jealous of) those bloggers that put up daily posts with full, step-by-step instructions of their own, unique projects, accompanied by professional-level photography.  Maybe one day I'll get there, but for now, I have to remind myself that I blog solely as a place to keep track of what I've made and to share that info with the one or two people out there who find it interesting.  Of course, that doesn't work out too well if I don't post, so here goes:

Sweetpea graduated from 5th grade today.  They don't call it Graduation these days, instead it's Promotion.  A rose by any other name, right?  Last year, I saw that some of the 5th grade graduates (promotites?) had received cool leis made out of candy and money.  I filed that idea away in the ol' noggin (not sure how I retrieved it) and pulled it out this year to make gifts for my daughter and her best friend.

Here are the supplies I used:
Salt-water taffy (Trader Joe's has bags of it in pink/white hues)
Small, clear rubberbands (the kind used for braiding; I got mine at Sally's Beauty Supply)
Small piece of clear, stretchy cord
Pipe cleaners
Small amount of narrow ribbon
Moola, dinero, greenbacks, etc...

To Make:
1.  Arrange 25-26 pieces of salt-water taffy in a pleasing order.  Take two pieces and overlap the twisted part of the wrappers together.  Secure with a rubber band.  Keep adding taffy until you have a long strand of candy.  Use the clear cord (or string or yarn or whatnot) to tie the ends together.

2.  Fan-fold your money lengthwise (short end will meet other short end).  Secure it in the middle with a clear rubberband.

3.  Hold a piece of ribbon (or string or yarn or whatnot) alongside the folded money.  Fold a pipe-cleaner in half and twist it around the money/ribbon.  Curl the ends of the pipe-cleaner around a pencil or knitting needle (or a chopstick or a skewer or whatnot) and trim the ends to your desired length.

4.  Fan out the money and use the ribbon to tie it randomly to the candy lei.

Like I said above, one of these days I'll make one of those fancy-dancy step-by-step tutorials with photos.  For now, this is the best I've got.  I hope you like it anyways.  The graduate/ promotite/future middle schooler liked it............for about 2 minutes, until she decided it was too itchy.  Her best friend kept hers on all afternoon.

At least she kept it on long enough for me to snap a picture.