As regular Craft Corner readers know, we often suggest craft kits as a good way to introduce yourself to a new skill.
This week we focus on beaded watch bracelets, and kits are available to get you started for about $15 per kit, available online or at local craft stores. We found ours at Craft Mart in Marysville, but we also found a variety of watch faces and other related products on the Web.
We were delighted with the finished products from the kits, and they inspired us to try our own beaded watch bracelet creations, as shown in the photo. (From left to right in the photo, the kit watches are numbers 1 and 3; our own creations are numbers 2 and 4.)
Having said that, let’s talk about the procedure involved in making the beaded watch bracelets.
Kits include a watch face, beads and stringing wire; you supply the needle-nose pliers or crimping tool and wire cutters.
The process is pretty simple (and in the case of the kits, just follow the directions – most of which are very clear): Cut two 12-inch pieces of stringing wire, one for each side of the watch face; run the wire through the holes in the extensions from the watch face, making two equal lengths; add beads as per the instructions in the kit or according to your own design; and finish off with a crimping bead and toggle fastener.
Here are a few things to remember, whether you’re working with a craft or designing your own watch bracelet.
* Before anything else, make sure the watch works.
There’s a small plastic piece under the watch knob that must be removed before you can set the time on the watch. Always do this before stringing your beads, just to make sure the watch works and you haven’t spent an hour designing a bracelet, only to have a watch that doesn’t work. Trust us on this: it can happen.
When you’ve made sure the watch is working, replace the little plastic piece between the face and the watch knob to prevent the battery from running down.
* Kits are generally sized for a 7-inch bracelet (and the 12-inch piece of wire will give you enough to work with comfortably), but you can add or subtract beads or findings to make the bracelet fit properly.
It’s best to measure the wrist of the person for whom you are making the watch – keeping in mind how far up or down the arm she or he wants to wear the watch – before stringing the beads.
* If you plan to split the wires and have two strands of beads in places in the band, it’s best to put small beads at the beginning and end of each strand to ease the strands into the connecting bead. This will keep your beaded watchband as straight and even as possible.
* Pull the string of beads as tight as possible without putting undue strain on the wire.
If you leave them too loose, the bracelet will look clumsy and unfinished, with unsightly expanses of wire showing between beads.
But don’t pull too tightly. If you do, guess what happens.
Yep! Snap, bounce-bounce, plop go the beads all over the floor, not a pleasant thing to have to deal with. And again, trust us on this: we speak from experience.
* If possible, when running the wire back through the crimping bead to finish off, run the wire back through a few other beads as well. This will help to secure your work and prevent the wires from pulling out of the crimping bead. It’s not always possible, as some of the beads and findings are too tight, but if you can run through them, do it.
Note: If you plan to design your own watch bracelets without benefit of a kit, the faces will cost you between $3 (online, in bulk or on sale) and $10 (if purchased at a craft store). Of course, you can find more expensive faces if you wish.
The cost of the beads is, again, a matter of choice.
You can find packages of beads for $1, or spend upwards of $5 per bead if you wish. It all depends on what you want to do.
When choosing beads, faces, and so on, try and keep a proper balance.
For example, if you spend $20 on a watch face, don’t use cheap plastic beads for the bracelet; and, conversely, if you spend $50 on beads, don’t buy a low-end watch face.
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