Crimp Beads

P broke this bracelet at my house and was bummed because (1) I had just given it to her out of my sort of large stash of bracelets and (2) she had just deemed it her new favorite and (3) when beads went flying and rolling everywhere she thought that was the end of the new favorite bracelet. But have no fear niece, aunt Jill will fix it :)

This was an easy, albeit boring, fix so I'm not bothering to show you how I did it - basically just another stretchy cord bracelet and I've shown you a few of those lately...click here for a recent one...this is a little different tho because I added a crimp bead on each end since the stretchy cord is attached to leather cord (unlike my normal one-strand of beads tied together) and I wanted to make it even more secure. If you don't know how to use crimp beads I'll share a quick tutorial (really quick, quicker than this intro - it's very simple!).

A crimp bead is just that - a bead that gets smashed (crimped) closed and helps keeps two ends of string/cord/wire together. I still tied the stretchy cord to the jump ring (which is then attached to the leather cord) but then slid a crimp bead on the stretchy cord and ran the loose end back thru the bead. Then using small pliers, crush the crimp bead until it's flat and the stretchy cord can't be pulled out of it.

thread the crimp bead over both ends of the beading cord, slide it tight to the knot at the jump ring 

crush the bead closed

the flattened crimp bead helps secure the beading cord to the jump ring

one year ago: corn salad.