1. Introduction to Woven Jewelry with Leather Cord
Woven jewelry is in. From embellishing the look to creating your own, you can make your own woven jewelry at home. I'd like to start out by showing you this bracelet. It's white braided leather cord, and it has a beautiful little wire and bead flower in the center. This is really simple to make, and it all starts when you make the cuff.
2. Creating the Cuff with Braided Cord
To create your own cuff with braided cord, what you'll do is measure the cord out, including your clasp. So, I've chosen this great fold over end clasp here that I'm just going to glue on when I'm finished with my bracelet. But I want to incorporate that length into it when I cut. So, I know that I want to make about a seven-and-a-half-inch bracelet. So, I'm going to cut the leather here so that I can also find my center. The center is where we'll do the attachment of the little flower that we're going to make. Okay, so that will come back into play in just a sec.
3. Making the Wire and Bead Flower
First, to make the flower, you'll cut a piece of wire that's about 18 to 20 inches long. Then you're going to bring one of these little briolette shaped beads onto the wire. You want to leave a couple of inches of tail here and twist this wire together right at the point. Be careful with these, because sometimes you don't want to get your wire too tight against the point, but you do want it to be fairly close. It doesn't have to be perfect, because we're going to cover it up when we get to the center of the flower. Now we're just going to work with the long end of the wire.
4. Adding Petals to the Flower
So, to make each petal, you'll just slide the bead on to the wire and twist. Again, just being mindful of the point on that bead, you can give it a couple of twists and bend it so that your wire is always to the back of the petal. Okay, so you're going to keep adding petals, and I'll show you adding the last one onto this one. So, I have five petals here. These are six by nine beads. So that just works out that I want to add a 6th petal to make it look really nice and like a little daisy. So you just slide it down, fold the wire behind, and then you're going to twist.
5. Finalizing the Flower and Attaching it to the Leather Cord
So, you've got your flower here. The petal shapes are all formed, and then what you'll do is bring one of the wires to the front, slide a six-millimeter bead onto the wire. And this is a crystal pearl, but you could use any type of six-millimeter bead here. And I'm using 24-gauge wire, too, so that it's nice and flexible malleable so that I can shape it the way that I want. I just want to give it a little bit of a bend so that this bead sits right over the top of my twists, and I can again shape these a little bit more, bend the wires to the back.
6. Securing the Flower to the Leather Cord
But I just want to make sure that it's all secure. So I'm bringing the wire around the back of the flower, then coil this around the base of that pearl to really lock it into place, and also just because it adds a nice little decorative touch. Now I have two wires that are extending from the back of my flower.
7. Finding the Center of the Leather Cord
And this is where it's important to find the center of your leather cord because this filigree piece is going to go right over the center. So, I'll just thread my wires through the base of the filigree here and position the daisy right in the middle. And what I like to do is choose a color of cord that matches with the piece that I'm using. So in this case, I use this pearlescent white because I wanted to highlight the pearl in the center of the flower. So, to find the center, fold it, and you can kind of position it here into place.
8. Stitching the Wire Through the Braided Leather Cord
And then you're just going to stitch basically your wire through the braid. And what's great about this is that it really locks it into place. So, stitch it through. Use your pliers or your fingers to pull it through. Get your other one through, and then you'll use the braid to secure your component. Bring your chain nose pliers, pull this all the way through. My wire got a little bit bent here, so I'm just going to use my pliers to straighten it out. And then I'll continue pulling it through the foundation of the braid.
9. Manipulating and Stitching the Flower
And of course, you can manipulate your flower a little bit. Now what you'll do, stitch this back through the braid, really use the pattern of the braid to lock it into place. And then you can find a place in the filigree where you can pull it all the way through. Okay, so we stitch it down like that, and I'll show you what it looks like on the back of this one. See how I've brought the ends back through the braid? And then I just tucked one end in using my chain nose pliers.
10. Securing the Wire and Avoiding Snags
So, you want to make sure that you don't have any pieces that are exposed because you could cause snags there. So, you're just using the braid again to secure the wire.
11. Gluing the Ends and Attaching the Clasp
Now, when you're ready to glue the ends, what you want to keep in mind is to put your glue right over the end of the braid. You want to use an industrial strength adhesive, or you can use two-part epoxy, smear it right along the edge, and then place your clasp onto the braid. And a beading awl can be useful here because you can use it to help poke the leather into the clasp. So, you'll just press it in and then let this dry.
12. Attention to Detail: Clasp Positioning
Now, one thing that you do want to keep in mind if you're using a fold over clasp like I am, is that the top of your clasp is at the top of your bracelet. Be terrible to get this far along in your project and have your clasp upside down. So just take a second to make a double check on that one.
13. Creating Even Placement with the Braided Strap
Now, another thing that you can do with this type of braided strap is use it to create even placement. So, if you want to attach charms to it, for example, you can use a jump ring. And I have this beautiful crystal starfish. You can use your braid as part of a design element by passing the jump ring right through the pattern of the braid itself and using your chain nose pliers, of course, to get it through there and position it and then close it up.
14. Creating Beautiful Braided Designs Without Actual Braiding
This is another way that you can create beautiful braided looking designs without actually doing the braiding. This is another sample here on this brown bracelet where I did the same type of wire wrapping. I used the braid center as a placement for that one little focal bead and then twisted the ends together in the back and poked them back through to the front on this gray bracelet.
15. Wire Wrapping with Different Bead Sizes and Braided Styles
This is some wire wrapping that I did using four millimeter and six-millimeter beads. And I used a thinner style of braid there, but all three of the pieces go into the clasp. So, this is another way that you can get that wrap style bracelet without actually doing the wrapping. It's just three strands that you connect to the clasp.
16. Creating Unique Styles with Leather Cord
And this piece, what I did on here is I took my 16-strand braid, and this one is connected in the center here. It's a metal ring, and I have my crystals wire wrapped onto the ring, and I actually stitch that one down so that it stays nice and flexible.
17. Choosing the Right Leather Cord for Your Design
And of course, braid is available in a lot of different colors, so you can really coordinate it with the look that you're trying to achieve. It also comes in different styles, like this one that has a wide, wider leather lace, and this one has a smaller one and only three hands. So, you can see there are a lot of different looks that you can create with the woven look and just embellishing it right at home.
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