A Bracelet Made of Brads

Hi everyone! I hope the holiday season brought you all joy & some crafting goodies! And if you are in the deep freeze, please be careful, make sure your animals are inside and your elderly neighbors are safe.  Luckily, we haven’t gotten Arctic in my part of Colorado, but today I did wear my winter coat which is literally the first time in 2 years (I have a love/hate relationship with coats, but that’s another story).  Between the amazingly hectic season and the fact I also got myself a touch of a cold (not the flu, thank goodness!) which is partly why I haven’t been blogging – but the good news is I am feeling better and I have LOTS of new projects to share!

I don’t know about you but I have a ton of supplies that I just can’t bring myself to use because they are so pretty (some of you know about my paper addiction already) and this project was born from having this beautiful set of brads from gcd studios in my stash forever – at least 3 years.  I would take them out, play with them, remind myself how pretty they are & then put them away.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a homepage for gcd studios and I fear they may have fallen on hard times, but I am sure you have a set, or two, of lovely brads that you just can’t bring yourself to use.  I was inspired by this post on Joy’s Life that explains how to make a bracelet out of brads!!  This was a perfect solution to hoarding them – I could “use” them but at the same time, I could "keep" them (makes sense to me)!  I was actually looking on the Joy’s Life webpage for die cutting machine information & I feel so lucky I found this post.  Using up my stuff is also one of my resolutions for the new year - mostly because I need the room and I can't justify buying anything new until I clear out some of this old. 

Since this project really depends on how large your brads are and how large you want your bracelet to be I am not going to make a material list – all you need are some brads, some jump rings and a closure. Oh and some pliers or I have this nifty little jump ring opener I got from Fire Mountain Gems – this is an awesome company that sells all kinds of goodies not just jewelry supplies – and they have GREAT sales – I am in no way coordinated enough to orchestrate 2 pairs of pliers so this little tool is a must for me.  I linked up my jump rings first, I made four sets of a few rings a set (and for those of you who don’t work with them often, don’t open them from side to side, instead twist the jump ring – it helps keep the ring from getting distorted & it is SO much easier to put it back together)

 

Then I linked the rings to my brads.  The brads I worked with are almost an inch long, and are all the same size, so I just kinda winged it.  I suppose you could measure your wrist or another bracelet and figure it all out that way, but I don’t have the patience for that.  It really was very easy to make and I am thinking of how cool it is to be able to customize each bracelet.  You also want to be careful opening the brads because I did have a few of the “arms” break off and you need the arms to attach to the jump rings.  You need to open those arms all the way open.

Open them ALL the way

  And here is my new bracelet!   

 

TaDa!

 Now on a few of the brads I was unable to really push the brads arms down and I think what I’ll do is put a dab of E6000 on the arms to make sure they don’t get caught on anything.  I am also debating if I should make it a bit smaller, but I like the fact that I can just slide it on without having to fiddle with the closure – but again, it’s all preference!

I think the arms are too long

I tried to get a good picture if the arms sticking up but nothing would cooperate - I hope you can see what I mean in the above picture.

I hope you enjoyed this little how-to - I love my bracelet! I will be going through my brads & definitely making more of these (early holiday gifts anyone?) 

I would like to enter my bracelet in the following challenges:

Frilly & Funkie - New Years Resolutions (to use up my stash) 

UnstampaBelles Challenge Blog - New Beginnings (I have never made this before, new technique)

Creative Creations Challenge Blog - Anything Goes

Crafty Girls Challenges - Anything Goes

Creative Moments - Anything Goes
Added 1/10/14, Suggested I join by Buttons ~
Our Creative Corner - No More Shopping Sins!!