Hey there everybody! My name is Lei. I come from a land called My Many Colored Days. I'm a mom to 4 colorful children and I live a wildly colorful life... I love running, reading, writing, mothering, creating, photographing, baking, teaching, yoga and playing the violin/viola. Not all at once though - haha! I am really excited to be here at Jen's place today sharing this fun tutorial with you. Hope you have a ton of fun with it! My inspiration for this project came from a necklace I saw in the Boden USA catalog (photo below). Boden is a collection of clothing and accessories which I love... but is too pricey for me. Since it was love at first sight with this necklace, I knew I needed to tried to try and recreate a likeness of it for myself - but for much less money!
My inspiration for this project came from a necklace I saw in the Boden USA catalog (photo below). Boden is a collection of clothing and accessories which I love... but is too pricey for me. Since it was love at first sight with this necklace, I knew I needed to tried to try and recreate a likeness of it for myself - but for much less money!
11 April 2010
Boden Inspried Flowers and Tubes Bracelet, originally posted at Tatertots and Jello
Here is how I switched it up and made it my own. I went with a bracelet rather than a necklace, and mixed and matched the fabrics to make it a little funkier. I loved the gray color scheme, so I stuck with that. But I will definitely be trying this with some more colorful fabrics as well! Heaven knows I love me some color.
Here's what I used:
snippets of ribbon and fabric - for the tubes, about 2 in. long, and varying widths
needle/thread
hot glue
ribbon and fabric for the flowers, 8-10 in. long
buttons
chain link bracelet to attach the tubes to
And here is what I did. First, I formed the tubes. I rolled about 2 in. of both fabric and ribbon for mine.
*Note: the fabric was easier to work with and the tubes came out a little cleaner.* To secure the tubes I used hot glue. (Fabric glue takes too long to dry.) I suspect that Boden stitched their's (you can sort of see a stitch in the center of their tubes). But because I wanted a true tube I chose to hot glue mine. If you go this route, do not hot glue right on the edge of your ribbon, leave a bit of a tail - like this:
And here's why : as you continue to roll the tube closed the glue will ooze outward giving you a more secure seal. If you don't leave a tail, the hot glue will leave a sloppy, goopy looking seal.
(Geez, is everyone's hot glue gun as grody as mine is? It is definitely not in picture form! Lol.)
After I formed my tubes and decided which pattern I wanted them in, I formed the flowers. Again, I used both ribbon and fabric for a more eclectic look. I love the finished edge of ribbon for flowers and corsages. But a ragged, shabby edge is fun too! If you don't know how to make these flowers, here is a quick review.
Stitch along one side of the ribbon or flower, like so:
As you go, cinch the ribbon/fabric to form pleats or ruffles:
When your flower has reached the fullness you would like, stitch it closed to form a circle. And voila, a flower. Once the flowers were formed, I hot glued a button to the center of each of them (I made 3).
The final step is to assemble the bracelet. Again there are a few ways you could do this. I happened to have a very plain and simple chain link bracelet that I never wear. So I threaded my tubes together (staggering them a bit for fun) and attached the string of tubes to the bracelet... a few stitches every couple of links reinforced with a dab of more hot glue. You could just thread them together and attach some kind of closure or make a ribbon tie like our original. Since it's kind of a chunky bracelet, I didn't make the ribbon closure (even though I love it!). I just thought it might be too much.
Here is a photo of the back of my bracelet so you can get an idea of what I did:
You could also thread the flowers between the tubes. I mounted mine on top of the tubes with, you guessed it, hot glue. :D
And here is the finished product!
Aren't those tubes cool lookin'? I love them! Many a fun project could be made using tubes... ;)
Thanks so much Jen for letting me share. I love getting ideas from others as well! So please stop by My Many Colored Days sometime and say hi so I can come see your fun projects as well!
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4 comments:
Thank you for your sweet comment about my bloom pots! And I must say, when I linked on your blog it brought a smile to my face. I saw this tutorial on TT&J and it is on my to do list as well;) You are very talented! Thanks again!!!
I want one! Do you take orders? ;)
such a cute bracelet and thanks for sharing not only the how to but a picture of your inspiration!!
wow...Boden Inspried Flowers and Tubes Bracelet looks awesome. Wish I I could gift this to my partner.
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