Stretch cuff bracelet for I Might Make That! Monday

Stretch Cuff Bracelet from Pretty Quirky Pants

Source: prettyquirkypants.com via Geneva on Pinterest

Today does not feel like Monday to me. I had to work on Saturday and got today--Columbus Day--off, so it feels like Sunday instead of the end of a three-day weekend.

Normally I write my posts on Sunday evening, but this installment is coming to you in real time!

I discovered this lovely stretch cuff bracelet on Pinterest. The designer is Pretty Quirky Pants, and if you click on the link, you'll see step-by-step photos and instructions.

I like stretch bracelets because I like a close fit (I spend too much of my time at a keyboard to have something jangling around on my wrist with every keystroke.) The multi-strands of this cuff would give this extra security, I think. Note that these are plain cubes, not two-hole Tilas. The squares provide a nice texture.

I will also provide a tip about stretch bracelets that I haven't tried myself yet but definitely will. I thought it was part of this pattern, but I must have seen it elsewhere in my Pinterest-surfing. Many people complain about the knots on stretch bracelets coming loose, even if you put a dot of glue on them. I have had this happen myself. Last year, I read about using crimp tubes to secure stretch bracelets--i.e., you treat the elastic just like it's beading wire. I did that last year for some bracelets I made for some holiday craft shows, and that seemed to work pretty well.

But that's not the tip I'm passing along. One ingenious artist--and I wish I could credit her--suggested that you knot and crimp. She strings a crimp bead on each strand end, ties a knot, then threads the knot ends that you would usually trim back into the crimps on either side, then crimps them (trimming the extraneous ends at that point). That sounds really secure to me!

Binging on fringe for I Might Make That! Monday

Fringe bracelet tutorial at Whimbeads.com
via Artfire Beadweavers Guild

These three projects are a little different from some of my other I Might Make That! Monday entries because I actually have used some of the fringing techniques illustrated here before. They were just minor trim elements, however. I've never made a whole bracelet or necklace entirely from coral or loop fringe, as depicted in these projects here, and I think all three are cute designs.

First, the inspiration. The Artfire Beadweavers Guild, of which I am a member, made beaded fringe the topic of its July challenge. The Artfire post links to a tutorial on Whimbeads that shows how to incorporate several different fringe techniques in a single bracelet.

Fusion Beads' Reef It to Me necklace

Coincidentally, a day or so after I saw the above challenge and decided to feature the bracelet in my next IMMT!M post, Fusion Beads came out with a series of fringe tutorials in its e-newsletter.

Click here for instructions to do coral fringe, which is used to make the necklace at right. ("Coral fringe" is just another name for what the Whimbeads tutorial calls "branch fringe.")

A few days later, Fusion Beads followed the coral fringe feature with one on looped fringe, which is even easier.

That technique is used to make the bracelet below. A nice feature of the Fusion Bead beading instructions is that they are also offered as PDFs for easy printing.

Fusion Beads' Champagne Taste bracelet

Lookie, I created a widget!

For those of you new to my I Might Make That! Monday feature, I noted in last week's installment that my archive of past entries had gotten messed up and I needed to rebuild the page. I was able to design my first-ever widget, which has replaced the text button in the top-right corner of the blog, for accessing the archive.

However, at this point I've only had time to restore a few months' worth of the projects. I'll try to complete the archives by next week. (But I'm very pleased with myself to have designed my own widget, simple as it is.)