Handmade Beaded Valentine’s Day Bracelet
Buy this uniquely handcrafted charm bracelet for someone you love this Valentine’s Day, or if you’re feeling up to it, make it yourself!
All beads used in this bracelet are handmade, excluding the charms.
To Make this Bracelet you will Need:
Empty Paper Egg Carton
Red Wool Roving
Elmer’s Glue
Clear Nail Polish
Pink Acrylic Paint
Black Acrylic Paint
Fine Tipped Round Paintbrush
Wide Needle
2 Crimp Beads
Small Lobster Clasp
Heart Charms of your Choice
9” Beadalon .012” Bead Stringing
Step 1: Paper Mache Beads. Tear the paper egg carton into tiny pieces. Tiny, tiny, pieces. Place the torn pieces of egg carton into a plastic bowl. Pour enough nearly boiling water over the pieces of egg carton so that they are entirely submerged. Let sit for at least three hours. Mush the mixture with your hands. Remove water from the mixture and stir in at least half a 16 oz bottle of Elmer’s glue. Pinch off a bit bigger than a quarter sized piece of paper mache. Using your thumb, middle and index finger pinch water out of this glob of paper mache, shaping it into a ball as you squeeze out excess water. Set aside to dry. Once the paper mache is dry, paint the beads a base coat of pink, followed by a black polka dots, and then a coat of clear nail polish to seal. After drying poke a hole through the bead with a large needle.
Step 2: Felt Beads. Portion off equal sized pieces of red wool roving. Rub the portions of felt onto bar soap. Do not scrub the felt onto the soap, but rub a piece of felt across the soap in one direction, once. Submerge under hot water…a little or a lot(the amount of water I’ve added when making my felt beads hasn’t really changed the outcome). Start rolling and shaping with your palms and fingers the portion of felt into a ball. If the felt is concaving toward the center, tug the fabric out and continue rolling until you have a felted bead. Tada!
Step 3: Cut a 9” piece of Badalon bead stringing wire. String a crimp bead onto the wire and bring the crimp to one side of the string. String the end of the beading wire through one end of the lobster claw clasp, restring the wire through the crimp bead, and squeeze the crimp together, securing the clasp.
Step 4: Take the loose end of string and string this end through the eye of a needle. String two red felt beads, one pink polka dotted bead, two red felt, one pink polka dotted bead…Finish the bracelet by attaching the other end of the clasp.
Step 5: Charms are attached ever three beads by a jump bead.
From, Kimberly at LoveLifeLiveLife.
Color and Meaning
Have you ever noticed that you are drawn to certain colors or that a certain color may have a very unpleasant effect on you? Perhaps the thought of wearing green, or tan, or pink; whatever color it may be to you, makes you cringe with a feeling so resistant that you “wouldn’t be caught dead in it!”
A story I often tell with regards to color and the power it can have on one emotionally has to do with a time I painted the walls of the bathroom in an old apartment of mine in NYC.
Love Life Live Life now has a fan page!
Due to the recent success of Love Life Live Life, Kimberly has decided to add a Facebook Fan Page.
Kick Off 2010 by Learning a new Technique…
What a fantastic way to begin the New Year, with this wonderful tutorial from Tammy Powley. It shows you the extremely useful skill of making beaded jewelry necklaces with no clasp. Good Luck!
