Caution: White Lady Wrapping.

Today, I show you how to make and wear this strappy, button-embellished wrap bracelet...

Made from tennis racquet grip tape.

Ready to DIY?  Here we go!

If you can't find tennis racquet grip tape, any type of non-fray material will do.  Felt?  Vinyl?  Leather?  Suede?  All good.


Cut a piece about an inch wide, long enough to wrap several times around your wrist plus a few inches.   Fold in half along the length.  (The grip tape is cool for this, it sticks to itself so you don't have to pin it!)

Note: folding in half is optional - if you like, just use a single-layer, half inch wide strip.  But a double-thickness strap creates a little more structure.

Next, buy a sewing machine.  Spend a week learning to thread it.  Spend another week learning to do the bobbin.  Spend about eight hours practicing stitching in a straight line.  Go quietly insane.  Pull yourself together, realize you simply can't stitch in a straight line, and go with that.

Embellish your folded strap with several lines of random, dreadful stitchery, like so:

Can you tell this is my first project using a sewing machine, ever?  Ever.

You can make a little tassel with a few snips and a roll:

Hand-sew the tassel and two sets of stacked buttons at one end, spaced a little apart.

Add a single flat button on the other end...and lookee there!  DIY complete!

Now!  How the heck do you wrap it?

Start by placing the stacked-button end on top of your wrist:

Now do some wraps, in and out around the stacked buttons.  Roughly like so:

You will end up with a bit left over, the single-button end, seen at the bottom right in the photo below:

The final step: take the tail and tuck it under one of the wraps.  The flat button will catch against the inside and keep the end in place.

Wala!

As you have probably figured out, this design is essentially a long, thin strip of whatever-you-can-find, whose true purpose is to feature some pretty buttons.  So play around, experiment with length and wrapping methods.  It's simple, versatile and pretty darn fun.

My groovy friend Kim found a way to wear it as a necklace:

She wrapped it as a choker, and loosely knotted the single-button end around the strap.  Cute!  (If you made one long enough, you could wear it as a belt.)


See you guys soon!  I am off to practice on that DRATTED machine.  Question to you sewists: HOW LONG until you learned to sew straight?  Because I am not making much progress.


But I am having fun.