Craft #8-- Beaded and Braided Necklace

And a month later, I have another post! And a couple more crafts all done and ready to go. They're all jewelry, so August's posts are going to have a theme to them :)
First up:  beads and braids.
This isn't the actual post that first inspired me, but for whatever reason, I didn't pin the original, and I've seen this one around, same idea, so it'll do.

Basic idea: string a bunch of strands of beads together, and then braid them.

I forgot to take a picture of my materials beforehand, but you can see them in the pictures.  Gold beads, black thread and ribbon, black jump rings, and some gold rings that I found in my craft stash from a long time ago.  I also used this handy-dandy thing:

It's a bead threader! My mom and I went to Michael's craft store, and I found it in the bead section. I knew I wanted to make this necklace, but stringing all the beads myself would pretty much give me arthritis.  You thread the really skinny hooked needle, spin the bowl, and then the hook catches the beads as they spin around. This one was $15, and if you don't want to spin it yourself, they have a battery powered one that spins on it's own.

It was so fast! and fun! I'm definitely going to be making more beaded things for a while.
So anyway, I made 16 strands, one end tied onto a black jump ring. They ended up not being all the same length, so after struggling fix it after I'd braided (didn't work), I took the extra beads off, regrouped them into 4 groups of four, and tied the ends to the gold rings.
Next step was braiding.
I like to be cool and different, so it was definitely going to be a four-strand braid. I took some pictures in a feeble attempt at a how-to for the braid, but this diagram is much better. The braid also looks really cool in your hair. :)

 Once the braid was done, I caught the gold rings onto the black one, and tied extra knots, just to be sure, securing them with clear nail polish.  Adding the ribbon and tying a bow were the last steps, and there we go.
(If you need the pictures to be bigger, just click on them!

 It turned out really well, I'm super happy. :)