Inspiration from Buttons

Button Bracelet

Long time no post. In fact the well of jewellery inspiration has been pretty dry for most of this year until yesterday when I took a new friend on a visit to the so called Haberdashery Souk north of Dubai Creek in Deira. Tucked away by the door of one shop I found some small bags of buttons, 10 dirhams (less than £2) acquired a bag of each. An hour or so at my workbench and I'd conjured up a pretty nautical themed bracelet in blue and cream with plenty of buttons to spare for another bracelet and or some earrings. Here's how:

You'll need a length of memory wire to fit round your wrist with 4 or 5 cm overlap, I used about one and a third loops of smaller diameter wire (31-32cm). The key to this design is that the buttons overlap whilst the wire remains hidden behind them.

Cream Shanked Buttons, Blue Flat Buttons & Memory Wire

I chose some cream buttons about 1 cm in diameter with a shank that were decorated with an anchor design. As a contrast the blue buttons are a similar size, flatter so they lie behind the shanks of the cream ones but still have the thread hole at the back. The anchor buttons had been moulded from plastic and as a result the end of the shank was a bit rough but easily filed smooth with an emery board. I used 15 contrast buttons and 14 anchor buttons, if your bracelet is smaller then fewer buttons will be required.

Bend the final end back and tuck in

Make a small loop at one end of the memory wire and starting with a contrast button, thread on alternate buttons. Check that all the anchors are facing the same way. Finish with another contrast button. Once you have all the buttons on the wire check they all lie right way up then carefully bend back the last centimetre or so ensuring that the last button is held firmly in place.Tuck the wire end into the shank of the last anchor button. All that's needed now is to slide it on your wrist and wait for the admiring glances from your friends!

Handmade Thursday

Green Glass Band

This weeks bracelet is one that has been sitting on my workbench for a while. I finished stitching the bead band last month in just a couple of days but then how to complete it? I had ideas of ornamenting the band with fringes and beaded flowers but after adding just two flowers decided I didn't want to cover up these lovely square glass beads and unpicked my additions. 

A rumage through my button box turned up the "Roman" coin, then it was just a case of creating a loop for the other end but it sat for ages while I argued with myself on whether or not to add a fringe, eventually impatience won out and I simply added the button and a loop fastner.

Bracelet Inspiration

Pink craft wire coils made on a size 2 knitting needle,
blue glass beads and "silver" daisy spacers, 
all threaded on memory wire with a simple clasp

Reversible bracelet in right angle weave using creamy glass pearls,
green crystal rondals and gold seed beads,
overstitched with crosses in god seed beads 

Ready made caged beads joined with twisted wire jump rings
to create four circles of beads. Two circles were
placed either side of a larger bead as a focal.

A bracelet stack - four circlets of plastic beads threaded on
beading elastic with a couple of metal beads to add sparkle.

Crystal hoops - glass bicones on memory wire.
The blue and grey one also includes some African seed beads

Crystal clusters are easy to make. Thread 8 bicones onto
individual headpins and wrap a loop on top. Take 5 or 6 cm of
wire wrap a loop at one end thread on a bicone then all the
headpins top with another bicone then arrange the pins to
make the tightest possible bundle before wrapping another
loop in the open end of the wire as close to the beads as
possible.

Recycling

Take a pile of basically old tat: 

Arrange it and measure out some chain:

Combine with some jump rings and a catch and hey presto! something retro to wear:

Another bit of recycled bling, this time in "gold":