Monday, July 20, 2009

Christmas Bracelets

shrinky dink christmas bracelet 9g

Welcome to Roots And Wings Co’s 2nd week of Christmas in July! We are so excited to be getting ahead on some fun stuff for Christmas. We hope you come back every day to see what we’ve got for you.

My project is Christmas Bracelets. I made them out of beads, and charms that I made out of Shrinky Dink material. I am so excited to be making these now. I will be using them for a few things. My daughters are making some that they will be giving away as gifts for their friends. I am making a few that I will be giving to my daughters at the beginning of December. My daughters love to wear holiday jewelry. I will give this to them for one of my 25 days of Christmas Advent Calendar events. It will be a scroll marked “surprise”. They will receive it in a pillowbox left on their pillow at night.

shrinky dink christmas bracelet

I printed up some cute Christmas shapes. You can easily find a ton of great shapes online (I can’t give you all a copy because they aren’t mine to give)! Then, I took a sheet of Shrinky Dink and placed it on top of my designs.

shrinky dink christmas  bracelet 2

I traced and colored in all of the images. This was an easy project that my kids eagerly joined in alongside of me! I love those kind of projects!

shrinky dink christmas bracelet 4

Next, I cut out all of the colored shapes, out of the Shrinky Dink material.

shrinky dink christmas bracelet 5

Punch large holes out of the top of each shape. My holes are 3/16 of an inch. If you go too small, the holes will close up when you bake them.

shrinky dink christmas bracelet 6

Bake the shapes as directed on your package of Shrinky Dinks. I cooked mine at 325 degrees, for 3 1/2 minutes. They will curl up and become misshapen during the cooking. Make sure to cook them long enough that they lay flat back down on their own!

shrinky dink christmas bracelet 9

Now onto the jewelry making part of this project. Gather any jewelry making supplies that you have. As I like to dabble in all crafts, I have lots of supplies on hand for most projects.

I love using the jewelry board to hold all my supplies in one place, and then to lay out my patterns for my jewelry. This also helps with figuring out how long you need your pieces.

For my bracelets, I like to use the elastic cord because these will be used by my daughters. They like the ease of elastic, versus having ends to put on and off. I also used metal rings to attach my charms to the bracelet with. However, my daughters prefer to make their jewelry without the metal rings. So, we did it both ways.

shrinky dink christmas bracelet 9e

A tip that I have when stringing jewelry, especially when your children are doing their own or helping you with yours, is to tape down one end of the cord. This saves the beads from falling all over the place!

shrinky dink christmas bracelet 9i

My girls and I finished quite a few of these bracelets!

Rebecca

Heartfelt and Handmade Holidays

5 comments:

twinkle teaches said...

These are lovely! Can Shrinky Dink be bought by the sheet or do I need to get a kit?

erika said...

soo cute! What a great use for the shrinky-dinks!

Mama King said...

Adorable! I haven't made Shrinky Dinks since I was a girl.

Army Wife Quilter said...

totally cute

Isabella Fanado said...

Incorporating Christmas Bracelets into the 25 days of Christmas Advent Calendar is a wonderful idea. There is an element of surprise where a scroll in a pillowbox is left on their pillows that adds some magic and thrill to the holiday countdown.

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