On a scale of one to Minkus, how much of a loser am I for making a friendship bracelet for…myself?

Whatever. I think I more than just made up for it by making a Boy Meets World reference.

This DIY jewelry project is an edgier spin to the traditional friendship bracelets many of us made as pre-teens. Don’t recall how to weave these wrist decorations from your younger days? Well that’s why I’m here.

SUPPLIES

• Embroidery floss (colors of your choice; I picked four, but you can use more for a wider bracelet)
• Cone studs (I used small silver English punk cone studs from StudsAndSpikes.com)
• A toggle clasp (or any bracelet fastener you’d like)
• Tape and scissors

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Cut two strands of each color, roughly 24 inches long. Knot together, leaving a few inches of excess. Tape to a table or your thigh (seriously, I do this when my back starts hurting from leaning over the table). Arrange the colors so that they mirror each other. As an example, mine went black, dark gray, light gray, white, white, light gray, dark gray, black.

2. Start on the outer left side. Make a 4 shape with the outermost thread (black) and the one next to it (dark gray). Loop through in a knot and slide the black thread upwards, pulling the knot taught around the dark gray thread. Repeat, tying the same knot with the black thread around the light gray strand. And again around the white strand. Repeat with the black strand on the right, making a backwards 4 shape and knotting on the strands, one at a time.

3. Both black strands should now be on the inside. Knot them together to secure both sides of the chevron pattern together. The dark gray (or whatever your second most outer color is) will now repeat the pattern. Knot it around each strand, working inwards, and tie together when both are at the center. Repeat with the light gray. Then the white. Then continue to repeat until your eyes start bleeding and you have no sense of what time it is and realize you’ve just watched an entire season of LOST in one pathetic sitting…don’t judge me.

4. When the bracelet is long enough to wrap around your wrist, end it with a knot. Back in the day, I would just tie the ends together and wear the bracelet day and night until it was so ratty and faded that it kind of just fell off. Now, I like to add a clasp so that I can take it off whenever I like. Braid the loose strands through the clasp and secure with a knot.

5. Cut the excess embroidery floss and secure the knot with a dab of hot glue.

6. Now is the fun part. Push studs through the bracelet, leaving a little less than an inch between cones. Fold down the teeth of the studs with pliers until they lay flat.

Studs and spikes are in, you so don’t have to feel like an emo or Harley Davidson diehard to rock your new studded chevron friendship bracelet. Layer it with other bracelets or wear alone.

If you make your own, tweet me a picture of yours or post it to the Pumps & Iron Facebook page. I’d love to see what color combinations you try!

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I’ve been arm-partying my brains out on the blog lately with all these bracelet DIYs, and I think this will be the last one for a while as I move on to bedazzling other clothing items.

Because going out with a bang is the only way to go, this braided chain bracelet is probably my favorite DIY I’ve done all year. It’s simple to do and the result is (in my opinion) adorable.

You’ll need:

• Embroidery floss
• A chain (I got mine at A.C. Moore)
• Jewelry clasps
• Masking tape
• Pliers

1. Start by cutting three equal lengths of thread (enough to braid around the chain twice). Get a segment of chain long enough to wrap once around your wrist using pliers to separate the chain links. For the thread, you can use three strands of the same color, or switch it up. I went for a citrus color theme and used orange, off-white and yellow. Tie the end of the thread in a knot around the end of the chain.
2. Secure the ends to a table with masking tape. This makes braiding a lot easier.
3. You’ll then start braiding the thread next to the length of chain, looping each strand through a link in the chain when it is on the side of the braid closest to the chain. Continue this until you reach the end of the chain.
4. Secure with a knot, attach a clasp to the last chain link using pliers, and then tie the thread in another knot on the other side of the clasp.
5. You’ll now repeat the braiding process going down the other side of the chain.

When you reach the end, knot the thread and prevent fraying by dotting with hot glue. Secure a clasp on the end using pliers and you have yourself a fun new bracelet!

I layered mine with two of the braided bead necklaces I posted a few weeks ago (see the tutorial for making them yourself HERE) and this nautical rope bracelet from Sailormade. I thought the dark blue balanced out the orange and yellow nicely.

If you make your own, I’d love to see! Share a picture of your braided chain bracelet with me on Facebook or Twitter!

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Sorry I was MIA yesterday—someone had a little too much fun on 4^th of July and needed a whole lot of sleep.

This DIY bracelet is so quick and easy compared to the beaded wrap bracelet I made a couple weeks ago. I originally got the idea from Pinterest months ago, and my roommate had even made me one. Eventually I had to cut it off though, and wanted to make my own with clasps so I could remove them and mix-and-match them at will. Since it’s summer and neon is huge this season, my color choices were a no-brainer.

You’ll need thread (I used embroidery floss), beads, clasps, a piece of tape and a hot glue gun.

• Loop the thread through the clasp and back up. I used about 20” total because I wanted the bracelet to wrap around my wrist twice. Thread the end back through the clasp and secure with a knot. Cut the bottom loop so that you now have three strands of thread attached to the clasp.
• Begin braiding. It’s easiest if you tape down the end to a table.
• When you want to start the beaded section, simply continue the braid, adding one bead to the thread before weaving it over the others. When you’ve added the desired about of beads, carefully push the beads up so that the braid is taught and the beads secured in place. Continue to braid.
• To finish the bracelet, add the other end of the clasp (I braided it right into the end), knot it, cut off the excess thread, and secure with a dab of hot glue to keep the ends from fraying.

Voila! Pretty simple, right?

Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend!

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I’m super excited to share this post with you guys! This is because A. it’s definitely one of my favorite handmade pieces of jewelry and B. I miiiight be a little drunk.

And, just to be clear, although this is being posted on a Tuesday at 7AM, I am NOT writing this drunk on a Tuesday at 6:50AM. I mean, jeeze, what kind of sicko do you think I am?? Technology allows for this crazy thing called “scheduling blog posts,” so this is being composed on Sunday at 5:17PM. Totally socially acceptable for me to be a few beers deep.

Well, now that I’ve wasted a couple paragraphs of your time, I guess I should tell you how to make these earrings. But it just seems so unimportant to me right now…

SUPPLIES

• Small beads of whatever colors your little heart desires. I loves me some beachy colors so blues, tan and white caught my attention.
• Earring hooks (you can get them at any crafting or bead store)
• Thread (but you should use thin beading wire; thread was all I had at the time)
• 2 needles

Also, I should have warned you, I went a little camera-happy when making these. Blue is my absolute favorite color…well, it’s tied with white, but I feel like white doesn’t really count as a color…so I took eleventy million pics. I tried to edit them down to a select few, but a “few” ended up being…a lot. Forgive me; I’m inebriated.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. You’ll need about an arm-length’s-and-a-half of thread for each earring. As in, hold the spool of thread in one hand, the end of the thread in the other hand, and stretch out your arms as wide as they can go. That plus ½ of that.
2. Thread a needle onto the last couple inches of each end.
   
3. You’re going to attack each row of beads from both ends. Double team ‘em. One needle will go in left-to-right while the other will go in right-to-left. The first row will have one bead, and then increase each row by one bead up to 11. The body of the earring will have 11 beads in each row.
   
4. When you’ve gotten to the end and tapered your rows back to one bead, tie a couple knots to secure the pattern. Loop the thread through the earring hook’s loop several times to create a sturdy attachment. Knot it a bunch of times and trim the thread ends.
   
5. Repeat the whole process and, voila!, you’ve got a beautiful pair of beaded tribal earrings!

Was this as fun for you as it was for me? That’s it. I’m drinking a few beers before every post I write. It makes this whole blogging thing so much more rewarding for me. 

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