A stretchy comfortable bracelet that is also made out of recycled material? Yes!
All you need is an old stretchy shirt, or two or three!
I loved doing this project, because you can make endless variations with colors and thicknesses.
Let’s start:
Materials:
One shirt, cut into strips | Glue Gun
1. Take 6 pieces of fabric, mine are about 45 cm long and 1,5 cm wide. Place something heavy on the toppart to keep them in place.
2. Take the right strip and follow the red line in the picture.
3. It should look like this.
4. Take the left strip and follow the red line in the picture.
5. It should look like this.
6. Now repeat steps 2 and 4. Pull on them, but not to tight!
7. Keep braiding until you have your desired length.
8. Get your glue gun or some textile glue and place a stripe of glue on top of the end. Do this on both sides.
9. Cut the fabric on the other side of the glue strip. Not the braided side!
10. It should look like this.
11. Put some glue on the outside of the braid, like shown in the picture.
12. Place the other outside against it and push them together until the glue has dried.
13. Measure the width of youre braid.
14. Cut a piece of fabric. The size should be 2x the width of your braid + 1 cm.
15. Fold the piece of fabric around the part where the bracelet is attached. And glue it together.
All done!
You can of course also sew the bracelet instead of using glue.
The bracelet will be easy to slide over you’re hand, because the fabric is stretchy and soft.
21 comments
Very cute! I may have to give this a try. <3
Ok I want to make one and ive tryed but i still dnt understand how to do it. could yu youtube it. That would b awsome.
I LOVE the chunkiness (is that a word?) of these. Very cool!
how do you finish tho? tie it up at the end?
There are different ways to finish, I choose to use some textile glue and glue a new strip of fabric around the ends to combine them. But it’s also possible to just tie a knot at the end, I actually think that both ways work very well.
x Lana
I was looking for a simple bracelet to get a bunch of teenage girls to make on a youth camp and I think this is the winner. I have had a squizz through yout blog and love it- I’m your latest follower via blog lovin. You do such a great job taking photos and writing interesting and creative posts :-) I’m keen to see a tutorial for your rug that you are currently making :-)
I may not be reading it correctly, how do you get the different colors in there?
For the different colors I did the same braiding, only I used three rows of one color and three rows of the other. The effect will look different depending on where you put which color. For instance, you place the strips down like in photo 2, and from left to right you have: white grey white grey white grey. You can mix and match every way you like!
I hope I explained it well enough. If you have any questions please just let me know!
x Lana
Great project & I’m thinking that some of the ladies at the women’s shelter might enjoy this.
1. How long should the strips be for an average size woman’s wrist?
2. If you glue a fabric piece to finish it, then it just slips over the hand like a bangle?
Thanks
Terri
Thank you for your comment. I posted an update about this post, I hope it will answer all you’re questions. Good luck!
x Lana
Hello, Lana! I am Katerina, from Greece, and I luckily found your blog from craftgawker. This project is great, I ‘ve been searching for a way to braid 5 or 6 straps. Thank you very much, I will definitely try this. Keep posting. Nice to meet you (my blog is in Greek, unfortunately).
Hi!!! i think your bracelets are very creative i have made a few and all my friends say they r awesome THANK YOU
can you make a video ?
Nice idea!!!!great blog!!!
For more inspiration my blog..http://noxcreare.blogspot.it/
Noemi
I love this; it’s so cute! I’m going to make some for my sisters and cousin for Christmas. I have a question though. In the top picture, I really like the red, pink,and white braclet. How do you do it with three colors like that? I get that with two colors it was laid out like pink, gray, pink, gray, pink, gray from left to right. For three colors, where would each color sit? Would it be red, pink, white, red, pink, white? Or red, pink, white, white, pink, red? I don’t know; please help!
Thank you for your comment! And how fun that your are making them right now!
It has been a while since I made them, but I think it was: red, pink, white, red, pink, white :)
x
Nice.I want to make it.
nice job for you! forest and lakes offer free tees for you!
Love this!!!
Simple and addorable!!!
If you want to stand out in your friend group, you can opt for Custom Rubber Bracelets.
I am very interested in making these as arm band/bangles vs. bracelets to cover up my glucose monitor and/or my wireless insulin pump. The problem is, I need it to be wider by just about an inch or two. Any suggestions? Maybe use the same pattern but add another strip to each side? Do you think that would work?
Hi Emily! What a fantastic idea to help it cover the pump and/or monitor up! To make it wider you can do two things: First, you can cut the the pieces of fabric wider. This way the bracelet will become a bit wider (try not to pull too much when braiding, because it will make the strips fold and smaller) And the second thing is to make a 7 string braid instead of a 6. This way you will add an extra row to the bracelet. If you type in “7 string braid” in google images, it will show some instructions on how to braid it. I hope this helps, and please let me know if you have any other questions!xx Lana