Made By Me Monday: Lei Me

The craft of the week that I made were LEIS!  Our good friend's nephew that we've known since he was in fifth grade just graduated from Heald College the other week.  So of course the Hawaii tradition is to make leis for the graduate whether they be made with real flowers or artificial items.  Since we can't really get the kind of fresh flowers we can get back home in Hawaii, I make do with artificial items.  I only had a week to make several leis so I went with a fun fur yarn lei, ribbon lei, and a net stuffed lei.

I'm fortunate enough to have my mom ship me items that I can't get here in Oregon (which is quite often because she LOVES me ;p) and a few months ago when I was on a lei making frenzy she sent me several packages of net tubing for stuffing items to make a lei.

For this particular graduate I knew one of his favorite alcoholic drinks so I bought mini bottles of Maker's Mark Whiskey, several packages of saimin, and bananas.  Why the saimin and bananas?  Weird combo yah I know.  I had originally wanted to stuff the lei with whiskey and travel sized packets of Tylenol or Advil as a joke in case he had a hangover after his graduation party.  It seemed a little boring to have just have those two items in the lei.  So I asked my hubby what hangover relief items could I put into the lei and he said SAIMIN. Oh DUH why didn't I think of that. 

Then a few nights later on Facebook the graduate posted that he was preparing to hydrate the night before his party and I jokingly said to keep the Gatorade handy.  So he replied saying that bananas help with easing his tummy (why? I really don't know), so that gave me another idea to opt for the bananas instead of the Tylenol or Advil. So here how this lei turned out.

The second lei I made was a fun fur/fuzzy yarn lei with kukui nuts and shells.  This was my first time making this type in particular since I've only done the whole strand of just yarn. I like it a lot so I'll for sure make more of these in the future.  Here's how this one turned out.



The last lei I made is one I've learned how to do from all the way back in high school some *cough* 15 years or so ago *cough*.   This ones so simple and relatively cheap on the materials.  I chose to make a four stranded lei of red, yellow, green, and black (Rasta in colors).  I could easily make this in several hours but for some reason my two kids demand my attenion LOL. Here's the end result.

AND here's the graduate rockin' the leis.  CONGRATS JOSH!!