How to Make a Friendship Bracelet with Hemp

I made this friendship bracelet today while watching some old episodes of The Office (Michael just started his own paper company!).  I find braiding these friendship bracelets fun and calming... And it makes me feel ultra zen because I am braiding natural material into jewelry and thus feeling extra eco-cool!

Here are the steps:

1. It is probably easiest if you choose two different colors to begin with because it will be easier to identify which string belongs to which set.  But once you become familiar with braiding this braid, you can always make the bracelet using the same color of string.

2.  Cut out one long strand of each color:  Generally you would want each strand to be 4x the desired length of your bracelet.

3.  Align your two colors of strings together, fold it in a half, and at the half mark tie a knot:

You can use the knot as a button loop at the end so that one end of your bracelet will have a big bead (like the bright pink mother-of-pearl bead I have in the pink bracelet up top).  But while you are making the bracelet, you can also look the knot onto a safety pin and pin it somewhere to stabilize your bracelet as you braid.

4.  

Strand 4 goes under 2 and 3

5.

Strand 4 goes under 2 and 3 once again

6.

Strand 1 goes under 2 and 3

7.  In the next loop strand 1 will go under 2 and 3 again, but you basically repeat the same loops.

Strands 2 and 3 just remains in the middle throughout the entire bracelet for this pattern,

it is only strands 1 and 4 that moves and round.  So to recap:  

Loop 1: Strand 1 goes under 2 and 3

Loop 2: Strand 1 goes under 2 and 3

Loop 3: Strand 4 goes under 2 and 3

Loop 4: Strand 4 goes under 2 and 3

Loop 5: Strand 1 goes under to and 3

Loop 6: Strand 1 goes under to and 3

Loop 7: Strand 4 goes under to and 3

Loop 8: Strand 4 goes under to and 3

See the pattern?

8.  Now, if you want to add some beads in the bracelet like I did in the pink bracelet, you can string strands 2 and 3 through the bead and slide the bead up to the last knot created by strands 1 and 4, and then continue to loop strands 1 and 4 as usual underneath the bead.

Trials, Errors, and Creativity

Since I am only weeks into jewelry making, I am doing a lot of experimentations with different textures and products to find what would allow me to produce jewelry I could try to attempt to sell on my newly opened Etsy.com account.  I have only put on 5 of the 50 things I have made because .... *sigh*.... not everything is a winner!  My account is HandMadeByEle (are you shocked) if you are interested in taking a peek.

So today, I began to play with stainless steel wires.  The picture on the left looks blurry right?  Well, its not blurred: the wire comes wrapped up in plastic such that I had to carefully glide a pair of scissors through its entire length of 5 feet of wire to get to the stainless steel.  I don't understand the purpose of the packaging... if someone knows, please indulge me, thanks.

I had chosen these tiny little clasps to go on the ends of my wire for the bracelet I was making.  That is my 5 pound kitty's paw beside the clasp, and below is a picture of the clasp.  You see that little circle in the right num-chuck (not sure that is the correct terminology)?  Well, thats the tiny little screw that you have to screw and unscrew in order to tighten your wire to the clasp!
Crazy small screws! I got out the screw driver kit my dad gave me when I moved out, and they had some pretty small screw drivers in there that are less than 1mm wide, but thats way too big still.  I was not intending to go to the craft store and pick up another screw driver before starting my project so I searched the house, and luckily found scalpels!  So I used the thin end of the scalpel to unscrew the screw!  SUCCESS!  Right?

I quickly put in the wire and now its time to rescrew the miniature screw.  So I grab the miniature screw and it took 10 suspenseful seconds to place the screw in its hole.  I reach for the scalpel and gently jab the screw with the scalpel, and OH MY GOODNESS I GUESS I JABBED TOO HARD because the tiny screw rolled off the table and being smaller than a grain of dandruff that thing is gone into the abyss.  There goes a 2 dollar clasp!  Thank goodness the package was 4 dollars for two because I am really not heading back to the store on a note of defeat.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/85740864/glistening-compass-bracelet?ref=v1_other_2

So I completed my bracelet with the second clasp in the package.  Then I went to shop and found that the company that makes these clasps has also manufactured little tiny screw drivers to prevent the beading world from haphazardly playing with scalpels.  And guess what?  The screw driver comes in a package with 6 spare miniature screws!  What a day!