My love for big fat bracelets is thoroughly documented. So when I found these wooden bracelet forms at my local craft store, I had to have them. The possibilities just made my mind race. I am such a crafty nerd.
Really, you could do anything with these, including just paint them and lacquer them, but I thought this would be a great opportunity to use up a bunch of fabric scraps.
I made two different kinds of bracelets, but for both of them I used an art sealer. You could use mod podge or other decoupage medium, but that tends to dry fairly soft, and is water soluble. This sealer dries much harder, and I won’t have to panic if I wash my hands a little exuberantly.
For the wider bracelets, I cut a scrap piece of fabric wide enough to cover the outside and inside of the bracelet, and long enough to wrap around the outside. I applied a generous coat of the sealer to the bracelet, and stuck the fabric on top, and then applied even more sealer on top.
To cover the inside, snip the sides of the fabric right up to where it meets the bracelet. Cover the bracelet with sealer, fold the fabric pieces in, and cover with more sealer, if you snip far enough and overlap the pieces, you can reduce any puckers or folds on the top of the bracelet. When you finish securing the fabric, cover the whole bracelet with another coat of sealer.
That method would not work for the thinner bracelets. There would just be WAY too much puckering and not enough of a flat part to straighten everything out. So for that, I ripped a piece of fabric about 3/4″ wide and wrapped it around, covering everything with the sealer as I went.
Ripping works really well for this because it’s such a simple way of getting a consistently sized strip. Also, the little bit of fringe only adds to the look. If you make your strip any wider than 3/4″, you’ll probably run into those same puckering problems, so it’s better to err on the thin side.
This is such a simple, cheap project it works great for gifts or for a craft time with older kids. I’ve already had the teenagers from church over and we had a great time making them, and everyone was successful. It might just be the first craft class I’ve ever taught where everyone finished the project and was happy with their results.
I love this idea. I don't know if you've come across decopatch http://www.thedecopatchplace.co.uk/ (this is a UK site) but I bet that would work really well with them as well. I really hope your big doctor's appointment went well after all your waiting and patience x
Where do you get the "naked" bangles?I have been looking for un-finsihed ones for a while now.
I just purchased my haberdashery kit and planning to try out this craft since I am really into accessories particularly personalized ones. This ideas is definitely fabulous.