Hello, Happy 2020 New Year Greetings from Greece, I love the sound of 2020!

My 9 year old daughter (going on 16) has been talking about being a VSCO girl for about 2 months, so for Christmas I thought I would make her a box filled with VSCO girl items.

If you are asking what VSCO means, then

A: you don't have a teenage girl in your life or

B: you aren't as fashionable as you think ;)

Don't worry I would have been in the B group as well, except I do have a teenager (or I should say a wannabe teenager) in the house.

Fashion, I have never really paid much attention to what is Fashionable, I am more all about being Comfortable, you know T-shirt, jeans and flip-flops kind of gal. But I do remember a time way back in High School when I wish I had been in fashion, so I get it, the need/want to look like your friends.

I am actually very okay with the VSCO girl fashion, let me tell you what VSCO stands for: Visual Supply COmpany, it is a photo editing app. But when I asked my daughter what it meant she said V for Vans (a brand of shoe), S for sksksk (will explain next), C for Camera (preferable the Fujifilm Instax mini) and O for Oop (sksksk and I oop are sounds VSCO girls make to exclaim surprise or excitement, at least that is how my daughter uses these words)

Supplies

Shopping List to become a VSCO girl:

Scrunchies (DIY)

Friendship Bracelets (DIY)

Puka Shell Necklace (DIY)

Oversized T-shirt

Vans

Camera

Hydro Flask

Metal Straws

Fjallraven Kanken Backpack

Step 1: Scrunchies

Hershey Chocolate has already made a tutorial for you in this Contest on how to make Scrunchies, (more Instructable Scrunchie tutorials) so I will not re-invent the wheel ;) but I do want to give some sizes, my favorite scrunchie size is the one you see my daughter wearing here, it was 5.5inches (folded in half, so 2.75") by 24inches long and I used a 7.5 inch elastic. In the tower of scrunchies that you see in the photo, the sizes range from 2.5" wide to 6" wide and all of them are around 18"/22"/24" long, depending on my fabric for the lengths I cut my elastic: 24" fabric - 7.5" elastic, 22" - 7" elastic and 18" - 6.5" elastic.

Scrunchies are really fun and easy to make and my daughter only had 2 before and now she has 2 dozen (not all are photoed) that I made for her and her Christmas VSCO girl surprise box.

Step 2: Multi Strand VSCO Girl Friendship Bracelet

This bracelet is super easy and a great beginner project, if you are young please have an adult help you with the lighter and burning the ends of the cord, you do not want to burn it so much that it goes through your knot just the ends to kind of "glue" them together.

Supplies: 4 different colors of .5mm waxed Polyester cord

3 strands each of the 4 colors 6.5"/16cm
3 strands of 1 of the colors 10"/25cm
4 crimp beads (not necessary but cute and decorative)
scissors
ruler
lighter (adults only please)
flat nose and round nose pliers (not necessary but helpful, unless you do the crimp bead then you for sure need the flat nose plies)

Steps:

Cut your cord to the required sizes, gather the 12 - 6.5"/16cm pieces together (2nd picture)
Take 1 - 10"/25cm cord and wrap it around all 12 pieces, make 2 overhand knots (3rd picture)
Trim excess threads and take your lighter and burn the ends (if you are under the age of 18 please have an adult do this part) keep the 10" thread out of the way as you burn the ends of the 12 string strips together. (4th, 5th and 6th pictures)
Slide on 2 crimp beads, crimp 1 bead near the overhand knot pushing against the 12 string strip. (7th picture)
Make a knot at the end of the 10" thread and use the other crimp bead to crimp against that knot. (8th picture)
Burn the ends of that knot. (9th picture)
Repeat Steps 2 through 6 for the other side of the bracelet.
See Step 4 (in this Instructables) to make a Square knot and finish the bracelet.

In the pictures above you will notice I used washi tape to tape my project to a piece of cardboard, this was very helpful in making this bracelet, you could also use a clipboard, but I think the washi is a little more thread friendly.

Step 3: 2020 Connector Friendship Bracelet

This bracelet is a little more difficult, but still fairly easy to get a hang of, it only has one type of knot a Half Square Knot aka. Spiral aka. Helix knot.

Supplies:

Scissors
Lighter
1 Connector charm (the "20")
1 tassel and jump ring (make your own or purchase)
1mm waxed polyester cord cut into 2 - 35 inch/90cm cord for the spiral, 2 - 15 inch/40cm, 1 - 10inch/25cm (same color or different)
Ruler

Steps:

Cut 1mm waxed polyester cord to the specification above
Create a front facing larks head knot on 1 side of the connector charm (1st picture) with 1 of the 15inch/40cm cords
Fold a 35inch/90cm cord in half and position it behind and underneath the knot and cord that is connected to the charm (2nd picture)
Tie an overhand knot (3rd picture)
Make a 4 shape with the left hand piece of cord and place the right hand side of the cord over the top of the end of the 4. (4th picture)
Take the right hand side of the cord and tuck it underneath the middle connector cords and up in between the middle of the 4 (5th picture)
Tighten until it form a knot at the top of the cord (6th picture)
You will continue making Half Square knots (the 4 knot - steps 5 through 7 above) the cord will slowly make a spiral twist continue until you have 2.5 inches, then tie a knot with all of the cords at the end.
Trim off the right and left side cords that were making the spiral, keeping the middle 2 strings from the connector cord attached, burn the ends of the strings you trim (ask a parent for help if you are young)
Repeat Steps 2 through 9 for the other side of the connector charm.
Tie the ends of the connector charm strings at the end with an overhand knot
See Step 4 (in this Instructables) to make a Square knot and finish the bracelet.

After making the Slider Square knot in the next step, then you can add the tassel with a jump ring to the connector charm

Step 4: Let's Finish Those Bracelets With Square Knot Sliders

Let's make it so we can now easily close our Friendship bracelets with an Adjustable slider, made with Square knots. I had the hardest time remembering how to make my square knots, I blame it on age, you see to complete a square knot, you need to make 2 knots! I came up with an ingenious way to remember where I was at on each knot. Start always the same way, how many sides does a Square have?........4........Duh.......

Supplies:

This is where you use your 10inch/25cm cord

Steps:

Place your completed bracelet in a C shape with 1 end string facing down and 1 end string facing up, place your 10"/25cm piece of cord underneath these loose ends at about the halfway point on the cord. (1st picture)
Tie a overhand knot (2nd picture)
First knot in the square knot should look like a 4 (see 3rd and 4th picture) taking the left hand string make an acute angle, take the right hand side and lay it over the bottom of the angled left hand string, now take the right hand string and slip it under the middle cords, the right cord and up through the middle of the left cord, that looks like the middle of the 4. Tighten till it is tight. (5th picture)
The second part of a square knot is to make a D with the right hand string, shape it in a D shape (Duh - 6th picture) take the left cord and place it over the bottom of the D (7th picture), now take the left hand string and slip it under the middle cords, the left cord and up through the middle of the right cord that looks like the middle of the D (8th picture) and tighten to a knot (9th picture) THIS IS CONSIDERED 1 KNOT, A SQUARE KNOT - 4 sides Duh, see how awesome is that, I can remember 4 sides makes a square Duh... equals 1 Square knot!
Now repeat Step 3 and 4 to create a second Square knot....
It depends on the size of your thread, for the blue .5mm thread in the beginning of the video, I made 7 Square knots, for the 1mm thread I was able to make 4 square knots, please see video to see the differences.
When you are finished making your square knots, finish with another overhand knot like you did in step 2.
Then take any leftover cord ends and thread up through your square knots using a dull/cross stitch needle, you do not want to pierce the cords going down or up, otherwise they will not be able to move. (10th picture)
If you have difficulty doing this use a flat nose plier to pull up your needle, request the help of an adult if you are a young.
After pulling through a few square knot pull the leftover cords up and out, trim and then burn down using a lighter.

Step 5: VSCO Girl Inspired Bracelets Are Finished

Oh JOY, you have now completed your VSCO inspired friendship bracelets, make for yourself, make for friends, make them for everyone!

Step 6: What Else for Your VSCO Box?

I hope you vote for me in this Fashion Challenge, because I would love to buy my daughter an Instax Camera!

I will not be purchasing an over priced Hydro Flask, she already has several washable water bottles, but I might get metal straws for the whole family! (save the turtles)

We did get shoes and will be decorating them in a Van like grid way later, now we actually have Van's here in Greece (surprise surprise) not in our town, but in the city, but they only had black ones and yeah, there was no way my daughter would be wearing those. So I purchased another brand of cotton canvas shoes and we will be painting them.

Puka shell necklace tutorial to come soon.

Let's see if I am missing anything else, ahh.. the backpack, probably won't get that either.

P.S. let me tell you how difficult it was to find a T-shirt in winter here in Greece, OMG (generation X girl here speaking her language, LOL) I couldn't find any and I was looking for black plain shirts, nahhh... they all had something on them, I finally found this cute pink oversized XL men's shirt to put in my daughter's VSCO girl Christmas box.

Will you be making a VSCO girl gift box, I would love to know, tell me what you would put inside?