Made It for Me: Jen from Eat. Sleep. Make.

Have you been loving all the posts this week from our awesome guest posters? So much talent, and so many great projects! Well today, you're stuck with me :)

I love to make things for for friends and family. So much so that I tend to forget to keep some of it for myself. I have a problem though: it always seems to happen that when I make something for someone else, the project turns out almost perfect (as perfect as handmade things can be anyway.) When I make something for myself though, I always screw something up! Does that ever happen to you? I guess that's the nature of homemade items, but man I wish I could catch a break sometimes!

I'm not one to quit though, so for my Made It For Me project, I decided to make myself a wrap bracelet using some leather from the bag of leather scraps I found at an estate sale a year ago (yep, I'm stretching that leather as much as I can! See other projects I've used with the leather here and here.) And, in royal Jen fashion, I managed to place the snap in the wrong place on the bracelet so do as I say, not as I do :)

SUPPLIES: 5-7oz leather or pleather scraps (make sure it's soft and pliable, not the thick leather used for belts. You can buy scrap bags of leather at most craft stores), disappearing ink marker, leather snap kit with setter, rotary cutter and mat, scotch tape, E6000 glue, leather punch (a hole punch may work if your leather is thin enough.)

ONE: first use your rotary cutter and mat to cut the leather to size. When cutting your leather, remember that you'll be braiding it, which will reduce it in length, so it needs to be much longer than you may think. My strip of leather was 18 inches long and 1.5 inches wide.
TWO: flip your leather over to the wrong side and measure 1 inch down. Mark a line with your marker (make sure you do not cut above this line.)
THREE: make 3 separate, equal lines that indicate where you will cut your leather.
FOUR: using the lines as a guide, cut from the marks you made all the way to the bottom of the leather strip (again, do not cut above the first line you drew.)

Plaiting Your Leather:

The plaiting is a little tricky, so hopefully the diagram above will help. Make sure you plait loosely as you go. Once you reach #4 in the picture above, just keep repeating steps 2 and 3 (basically, you're crossing the middle pieces over each other, then crossing each side and repeating that. Make sense?)

Finishing:

ONE: when you've reached the end, tape the end of your bracelet and cut off the excess to make it all even.
TWO: cut a small strip of leather big enough to wrap around the taped end of your leather bracelet. Use your punch to punch a hole in the middle of the leather strip and in the end of your bracelet that was uncut. Punch carefully! As you can see, I made the hole for my snap too close to the end of my bracelet so line your snap up on the bracelet to measure where the hole should be first.
THREE: follow the instructions on your snap kit to attach your leather snaps in the holes you punched.
FOUR: use E6000 glue to glue the leather strip to the taped end of your bracelet, and hold in place with a clothes pin or something similar. Allow to dry according to the instructions on the bottle.

Wrap twice and snap closed. This wrap bracelet has quickly become one of my favorite pieces of jewelry. Leather is always in style baby!

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This has been such a fun week, we hope you've all enjoyed the Made It for Me series too! Shannon and I want to say a huge thank you to the talented ladies who shared their projects with all of us this week - you're awesome! And thank you also to our readers. All of this wouldn't be any fun if it weren't for you. We hope you're inspired to make something for YOU this week! 

 In the spirit of making something for yourself, we're going to have a fun giveaway on Monday! 

Have a great weekend!