Am I the only momma with kiddos who love their accessories? The more they have the better! Thankfully, friendship bracelets are so easy to make. Several years ago I discovered these nifty bracelet looms but like all good things, it got stretched out, one of the kids decided to use it as a teething toy and one by one we lost them – but the concept of the loom stuck with me and this past summer we made our own.
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What you will need to create your own friendship bracelet loom:
Elmer’s Foam Board. We used leftover scraps from our DIY Wall Letters.
Razor Blade.
Embroidery Thread.
Crayon or a pencil.
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To begin you will need to cut your lengths of thread. Measure the wrist you are planning on using and make the strands that are the alternate colors (not dominate color – in my case the yellow and green strands) twice as long as the wrist. Then make the dominate color (in my case the blue) three times as long as the alternate colors. You will have leftovers, but it is better to have too much thread than not enough. Tie the threads around a crayon or pencil to help stabilize your bracelet as you weave it.
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1. Create your loom by cutting out a square of the board, and mimic the lines pictured in the first image. Carefully cut everywhere there is an orange line. You will want a hole in the middle and slits on the ends.
2. Thread your loom. You will want your super long dominate color threads to go on each side and the alternate colors to go on the top/bottom. Play with looks. We have alternated colors and done stripes (ex: two of one color down the middle and the outer threads being a different color).
3. Cross your side threads over each other by swapping them from one side to the other.
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4. Start with a thread on the top right of the card and move that thread to an opening on the bottom right side of the card. In the picture I am moving the green thread down to the opening in the yellow “side”.
5. Move the thread at the bottom, (the one to the left of the thread), to the top. In the picture I am moving the yellow thread from the bottom up to the spot that the green thread vacated.
6. When you are finished with a “round” the colors should be on opposite sides of the loom. Go back to step 3 and switch the side threads.
7. Start with the last thread you switched. So if you started before on the upper right and ended on the lower left, you will want to start on the lower left for the next round.
Continue weaving with your loom till you reached the desired length.
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Viola! You have a friendship bracelet! Let me know if you make some – I’d love to see photos of your kids favorite accessories on our facebook wall. Feel free to upload to your hearts content.
About Rachel
maybe I’d be successful with that loom……
Wow! That’s pretty cool!
Very, very pretty! Thanks for the tutorial:)
These are so pretty.
Oh my word! I used to make these in high school and sell them for $1
I didn’t have the loom though, looks way easier than how I used to do it. Great idea!
Oh my goodness! This is such an amazing idea! My daughter has been making friendship bracelets like crazy lately. This is awesome!
I’d love to have you link up with my linky party at The Southern Institute. Here’s the link:
http://www.thesoutherninstitute.com/2011/08/creative-me-monday_21.html
Hope you are doing well!!
Jenny
Beautiful bracelets!!! And with so many tech gadgets these days, it is nice to bring these handmade activity that can help keep children engaged and focus on just one thing. Thanks for showing them with instructions and all.
Oh my! This is so cool. I had never even thought of a loom to weave bracelets on (let alone thought to make a loom myself)! I can’t wait to try this out with my already over-accessorized children.
Hopping over from Somewhat Simple’s Linky Party to invite you to link up this fabulous project with us too….hope you’ll visit…:)
Tracy
http://www.craftjunkietoo.com/2011/08/tgif-linky-party-22.html
Very pretty! My daughter would love these!
I love this loom! I have seen one you can buy, but free is so much better. My 7 year old daughter has yet to try making her own, but I think she may like this.
Thank you for the tutorial. My granddaughter will love this craft and enjoy the finished accessories
. New follower from Homemade Monday blog hop. Hope you stop by for a visit. Have a great week.
Hey! If you like these come on over yo my blog, http://www.friendshipbracelts102.blogspot.com!!!!!:)
Love it! Definitely going to try this!
http://www.braceletsbydesign.weebly.com
couldnt do it harrrddd
Greetings! My wife and I frequently publish guest posts for other
blog owners to help increase publicity to our work, as well
as provide wonderful articles to weblog owners.
It truly is a win win situation! If you happen to be interested feel free to email me
at: tiara_saenz@inbox.com so we can communicate further.
Thanks!!