DIY t-Shirt Bracelet: The BEST: Leopard, Knotted, Gold Chained

Painting

: HANDMADE JEWELRY EXTRA-ORDINAIRE. Old t-shirt + leopard design print + knot + gold chain = fabo bracelet. Absolutely wonderful. Let’s make some.

This fun tutorial video is long and chatty, so I’ve summarized the steps here for you.

Cutting up a tee is just step 1…. Designer Connie Yu goes a mile further… :

She paints leopard print on the shirt
She knots it into a sailors knot
She weaves in some gold chain,
To finish it off, she glues on some fabric to close the bracelet.

Involved, but easy. You can do it to. Here is the how-to.

Step-by-step Tutorial on How to Make this Bracelet

2- strand knotted bracelet

Step 1: cut a big rectangle from the fabric between the two sleeves at the front or the back of your tshirt. Paint a leopard design on with some black paint. Blow-dry it, or wait a day till dry.

Step 2: Cut 2 long strips of 1 to 1.5” width out of rectangle. Tuck along the whole length of both strips so that the sides curl in and they become tubes.

Step 3: Knot your two strands together into the Josephine knot. (this demo = approx at. 7 min. point in the video)

source knot image: https://www.satincord.com/knots/doublecoinknot.htm (also called the Josephine Knot)

Step 4: Fiddle around with it till it looks like the knot in the picture/video (picture #4). Check if the loop at the top fits around your wrist. If not, adjust the knot so that it fits. Also ensure that the dangling ends together also fit around your wrist (i.e. have the length of 1/2 the loop).

Step 5: Cut the loop exactly in the middle. You should now have 8 pieces dangling from your knot, that are almost even in length; 4 on each side of the knot. Trim ends perfectly even.

Step 6: Weave in the metal chains along the same lines of the knot. Hand-stitch the chain edges onto the fabric.

Step 7: Making the closure: Cut a 1 x 2 “ rectangle from the t-shirt, and cover it lightly in fabric glue. Let the glue dry 1/2 a minute. When the glue gets tacky, take your bracelet and flip it upside down, and lay the 4 ends of one side of your bracelet onto the middle of the glued rectangle. Fold over the other end of the bracelet and glue the other 4 ends onto the other side of that rectangle, next to each other to make the bracelet loop. Press the ends into the glue. As your glued rectangle is bigger than the knot ends, fold the rectangle over them so it covers up all ends nicely. Let it dry for 24 hrs.