DIY - cord and bead friendship bracelet

 
These sunny days have put a definite spring in my step and what better way to celebrate than making a fresh set of friendship bracelets ready for balmy months ahead. My bead collection has recently gone under mass re-structuring and in the process I have discovered some colourful old favourites that were just asking me to be made into something. Teaming them with colourful rats tail (good material, bad name) I rustled up these spring time beauties. I will warn you that I slightly over complicated the fastening as I didn't want to use bolt rings, I wanted something that I could easily come on and off and then I got all fancy with using different colour cord but you could easily fasten with a bolt ring (like these ones). Enough chatting, here's how to make.

You'll need - colourful rat tail cord (1mm), eye-pins, cord-ends, 2mm crimps, superglue (optional) - see this post for all finding details

Step 1. Plait your cord, this can be as long as you like but as a minimum it will need to fit around your wrist 

Step 2. Thread your beads onto your eye-pins and close with a loop. To make a loop, cut your wire approx. 1.2mm from the end of your bead, fix the end of the wire tightly in between your round nose pliers and slowly turn, making a loop shape. 

Step 3. Take the cord ends and dab on a bit of superglue. Place the cord in between the sides and fold the sides over to secure. Make sure the end with the eye faces outwards, away from the main length of cord. Decide how long you want your cord length to be. If you want to fasten your bracelets with a bolt ring then use the following measurement - wrist width divided in half. If you are going with my method  then use the following wrist width minus 2cm, divided in half. Whatever that length is fix your ribbon end at that point, making sure your eye faces along the length of the cord. Repeat the above until all your lengths are cut. 

Step 4. Fix your beads to the cord 

Step 5. Take another length of cord (20cm per side will be plently) and thread on a 2mm crimp. Thread the end of the cord through the eye of the ribbon end, back through the crimp and flatten - see crimping tutorial. You want the crimp to be about 5mm from the ribbon end, repeat on the other side. If you are using the bolt ring method then fix onto the ends at this point and you're done. 

Step 6. Take another length of cord (again 20cm will be fine) and do about eight box knots - see this tutorial for how to macrame. Tie knots at either end of the cord as close as you can to the macrame knots snip of the excess cord and very carefully melt the ends on a tea-lights to fix, you could also use superglue. Cut off any extra lengths of cord and you are done. 

There you have it sunny bracelets for the start of spring - wear stacked with all your other favourites or make a bunch and pass them out to your best girls. Happy March and happy making! 

PS - I don't know why my photos have gone all fuzzy, they are fine on my camera, fine in Photoshop and then fuzzy online - can anyone help????