Safety Pin Bracelet

I remember being twelve and making safety-pin bracelets at girls camp.  I thought they were so cool.  I wore the bracelet every day until I lost it at the pool the next summer.  It was red, white, and blue. So patriotic.  So 1974.   Well, safety-pin bracelets have come back full circle… Now I just need the Farrah Fawcett hair-do to come back because I NAILED that look!

I got a safety pin bracelet for Christmas this year and had it on for part of the day before I realized it was a safety-pin bracelet.  Hip and cute with endless possibilities.  Here is what you need to gather to make one:

  •  Medium or large sized safety pins (gold or silver)
  •  Assorted beads of your choice (small enough to fit on the safety-pin and still close it)
  •  Medium grade stretchy elastic string

Set up beads in the order you like and fill the safety-pin to capacity and close.  Cut two pieces of elastic string slightly larger than your wrist size.  String one piece of elastic through the bottom loop of the safety-pin and the another string through the eye of the closed pin clasp.  Continue adding beaded safety pins until the elastic are filled to your wrist size.  The bracelet shown used twenty-nine safety pins with four beads on either side of the each pin.  Two on the top, and two on the bottom.  Tie it off, then show it off!

You can buy lots of different colored pins and millions of different beads.  Cheap and fun to make.  It would be a fun craft for a sleep-over, girl’s camp, activity days or a birthday party.

Nostalgic DIY Bracelet

Years ago my grandmother passed away.  I was eleven or twelve years old at the time.  A little while later we went to visit my grandpa and he gave me a necklace that belonged to my grandmother.  It was a broken strand of pearls.  I don’t think they were real but they were nice.  He also gave me some sweaters that had holes in them, but they had really great buttons.  He said they should have gone in the garbage but he couldn’t throw them away.  Neither could I.  I cut the buttons off the sweaters and kept them.  Just under forty years have passed since then.

Two years ago one of my daughters took those pearls and vintage buttons and made a bracelet for me for Mother’s Day.  All she had to get was some strong elastic cord and a clasp.  You can buy both of them anywhere from Wal-Mart to a craft store.  It cost about five dollars to make me nostalgic and misty for the rest of my life. I LOVE it.  I wear it all the time.  Maybe you have some fun heirlooms tucked away because you don’t know what to do with them….or maybe now you do.