friday fun retro 80's ..friendship bracelets and bubblegum vodka martinis! ♥

So I got this idea from  the other day at Target, I saw friendship bracelets for sale..took me back to the days of listening to  Madonna, chewing bubble gum, making friendship bracelets, and posting pics of Joey Lawrence and Ricky Schroder aka Silver Spoons.. on my walls. Here is a grown up version recipe for  homemade bubblegum vodka..enjoy!

First, unwrap some of your favorite, juicy pink bubblegum. Make sure you get the forrealz bubblegum and not the candy-coated bubblegum. The wrapped Dubble Bubbles are perfect.

Drop all these pink gums into your mason jars...

…then get this bubblegum DRUUUUUNNKKKKKKK.

used about half a 1.75 L bottle of vodka, five 8oz mason jars and about 50 pieces of bubble gum.

Place the bubble gum in the jars, fill the jars with vodka then seal them tightly. Place them in a safe place  and leave them there for a week or two. You can shake them occasionally when you check on them. You can leave them too infuse for as long as you want, but one week will be fine, if you don't have anymore time.
Seal ‘em up with the lid all nice and tight, and let these take a vodka bath for a week at the least–the longer they sit, the more intense the flavor.
After it’s all said and done, here’s what you’ll be drooling over:

Look at it, all pretty in pink!
Strain that puppy through a funnel into a martini glass.. and make some bubblegum martinis! viola!

and heres the diy for those friendship bracelets I remember making as a tween in the 80s!

Since this is such a free form enterprise the amount of colors of DMC embroidery floss you get is really up to you.
To begin, pick out your colors. For the purposes of this how-to and the following patterns each color will be assigned a number.

For patterns use a doubled length of thread cut each color to a length of 72-inches. Hold the cut pieces together, fold them in half, and then make a 3/4-inch long slip knot at the fold.
Using a safety pin pin the loop to your jeans (or any other stable piece of fabric that you don't mind getting holes in) to keep it steady.
Arrange the threads as instructed in the pattern. In the example above the thread order would be: 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 3, 2, 1

For patterns that use a single length of thread cut a 36-inch length from each color. Arrange the pieces in the proper order. Leaving a 6-inch tail, tie a simple overhand knot to start.

Place a piece of thread (in this case thread #1) over the piece thread to its right (in this case thread #2) in a sort of a "4" shape
Pull the end of the thread through this "4" loop creating a knot
While holding the right thread taut pull up the left thread to form a tight knot as shown above. Repeat once more. Both the Left and Right Knots are actually made up of two knots each.
If you are tying more than one Left Knot in a row you will use the same thread (in this case thread #1) to tie the subsequent knots along the a row from left to right.

The right knot is made in the same manner as the left but in the opposite direction.
Place a piece of thread over its left hand neighbor in the "P" shape

Pull the thread's end through the "P" to form a knot.
While pulling the left thread tightly down pull the right thread up to form a taut knot. Repeat this once to make a full Right Knot. Remember both the left and right knots are actually made up of two knots each.
If you are tying more than one Right Knot in a row you will use the same thread (in this case thread 1) to tie the subsequent knots along the row from right to left.

ending.......
There are a couple of good ways to end your friendship bracelets.
To end a bracelet that starts with a loop separate the threads into two equal groups. Braid each group and tie a knot at the end trimming the ends to be neat and short.
To wear pull the ends though the starting loop and tie a knot.  To end a bracelet that starts with a knot tie another knot at the end of the macramé. Braid both ends and tied knots. Trim to ends to look neat.
To wear tie the ends together in a bow.

now go ahead and blast some Madonna and Cyndi Lauper ...after all girls just want to have fun! ...no matter what age they are, even when they are remembering the 80's retro fun at age 36 ha ha! :)