Wire-Wrapped Beaded Leather Bracelets

Today I want to share a how-to for these wire-wrapped, beaded leather bracelets.

As I posted previously, I have a ridiculous amount of leather cord, so I used a little of it in this tutorial!

These bracelets would make a nice little gift for anyone, as you can pick colours and beads according to their personal tastes.

You'll need:

Leather cord (I used 4mm)

Thin jewellery wire*

Thick jewellery wire* OR cord end caps/spring coil ends to fit your cord

Beads to fit cord

Clasp

Jump rings

*I don't know what size wire I used as the labels are long gone--would hazard a guess at 0.4mm and 1mm!

Tools:

Scissors

Wire cutters

Flat nosed pliers

Round nosed pliers

Glue (if using end caps)

1. Cut a piece of cord 0.5 inch smaller than your wrist and wrap thin wire around the centre section. It helps to leave a small piece sticking out at the start (as on the right in the picture) to have something to grip hold of!

For the silver beaded bracelet, I wrapped wire to the same length as the bead (for the copper beaded bracelet I made the wire-wrapped sections slightly wider)

2. Trim off the ends and use flat nosed pliers to press the ends of the wire into the cord.

3. Slide on one of the beads and push over the end of the wire-wrapped section. Stick the end of the thin jewellery wire underneath the bead.

4. Wrap the thin wire around the cord to hold the bead in place. For this step, it's really helpful to use the edge of a fingernail to hold the wire in place for the first few turns of the wire!
Trim off the end and press into the cord with flat nosed pliers, as in step 2.

Repeat steps 3-4 on other side of centre section.

5. If you've got them, attach your end caps!
If not (like me) wrap thicker jewellery wire around the last 0.5 inch of the cord, as in step 1. Use round-nosed pliers to make a loop in the wire when you get to the cord end. Trim off excess wire and make sure that cut end is pressed into the cord!
Essentially you're making your own spring coil ends. Buying them is probably better; I just used what I had to hand.

6. To finish, attach a clasp using split rings.

Wear solo or stack them up!


Will be sharing this DIY at various link parties--check the link party tab above!