21 September 2013

Pony Bead Bracelets

It's been a while since I last posted.  Once the girls went back to school, I fell into a lethargic heap and battled two colds in a row.  I finally got up this morning feeling a bit better.

Olivia has been badgering me to help her make some bracelets she can give to her friends.  She had some thin, silver elastic cord and a container of pony beads.  Long ago we had a bead kit with instructions for how to make a bracelet using these supplies, but we had managed to loose the instructions.  I did the usual Google search and found something vaguely similar which helped to get us started.

This is what we made:


It was actually very easy, once we had worked out how to thread the elastic correctly.  Here's how you can do it yourself.  You need a thin elastic cord and some pony beads.


Olivia wanted to make rows of matching beads, so we started by sorting the beads into groups of four.  We used a paint palette for holding the sorted beads.


The first step is to thread four beads onto the centre of your elastic.


You then thread the next four beads onto one end of the elastic.


Take the other end of the elastic and thread it through the four new beads (the blue ones in this picture) in the opposite direction.



Pull the elastic so that the beads line up together in their rows.  It's important not to pull the elastic too tight at this point.


Continue adding the four beads at a time and threading both elastic threads through in the opposite direction.  Don't pull the elastic too tight, or the bracelet will pull out of shape.  You can gently tighten the elastic at the end.


Once you have enough rows to fit your wrist (it shouldn't be stretched out when wearing) you can gently pull the elastic along the edges so remove the slack.  This is what the finished beading should look like.


To join the two ends of the bracelet together, thread the ends through the first row (the purple row in this picture) like this.


Gently pull the elastic until it is tight enough, tie a double knot, trim the ends, and thread the ends back inside the beads.


The finished bracelet.


Once Olivia got started she found this really easy to do.  It's definitely something a 7-8 year old could do without help.

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