A Weekly Round-up and a Charming (Bracelet) Craftbotic Tutorial

I've been doing quite a bit of lurking this week. I have some serious coldage going on right now and it's wiped me off my feet, made me behind with my work and given me little energy to get my blog on. However, there's some awesome blog action going on out there and while I didn't have loads of energy to comment I want to show these ladies some love:

• Lauren moved me with her commitment to raising awareness about childhood cancer.
• Julie made my mouth water with her tasty shredded beef recipe.
• Alex made me homesick for Germany, but happy that I've found someone else in the blogosphere close to Mannheim!
• English, who reminded me of great times in Trier and Luxemberg, shared some awesome photos from her Europe road trip.
 
For those of you who missed it, I guest-posted over at Cocalores on Thursday. I hope you'll go and check out what I am in love with!

Anja is the great gal behind Cocalores. I met up with her in the summer; you can read about this here. She brought with her lovely homemade gifts (it's at this point I would normally show you a photo, but I forgot to take!). While we were there, we hit up an awesome little craft shop with some super-cute beads. So I bought some materials and vowed to make both English and Anja something to remember the day by.

 

Voila - here we have the 'Karlsruhe' bracelet! And like giant school kids, we all sorta match.

 Materials:

Twine or thin leather cord (1 metre is easily enough)

A charm of your choice

Some small beads in a complimentary colour

Thong findings (the clasp things below...)

Some jewellery pliers, or a boyfriend with normal pliers covered in electrical tape!

Scissors

 

 1. Use an existing bracelet to decide on the size of your bracelet. I have skinny wrists, but this one dangles just right.  Make sure the string is the same length or slightly longer. Cut 4 pieces of string into separate pieces.

 

2. Attach half of the clasp to one end of the bracelet cord.

 

3. Place the charm halfway along one piece of string. Tie knots either side. Check it will sit on your wrist in the correct place before tightening too much.

 4. Leaving the next strand of string clear, tie a knot 2-3 centimetres down from the clasp. Thread on the smaller beads. Make sure there is some movement in the row before tying the second knot. Then check that they sit on your wrist well.

 

5. Fiddle with the 4 strings until you have them together in one bunch and the string or cord taught. Check the size again against your existing bracelet. Check where the second clasp should go (using the existing clasps as a guide.)

 

6. Add the final clasp making sure your strings stay tight. Snip off the ends.

 

7. Put on your wrist and admire.

 

 Who says we should ever get too old for bracelets?

 

It's taken me over 4 weeks to write this tutorial, but expect more from me in the future. I am hoping to be back on track with craft fair production after the weekend. Until then, I hope you had a great one!

 

If you have any ideas for easy and popular crafts to sell at a school craft fair, please let me know!