Hello, hello! I posted this Baby Christening Bracelet Tutorial a while back on Sweet C’s Designs, but it is fresh on my mind, so I thought I’d share it with you today. It is simple to make meaningful, heirloom quality baby christening bracelets with this tutorial.
My husband and I are each the oldest of three children. Since we are also fairly young, that means we don’t have many nieces and nephews yet. In fact, we only have one nephew on my side, and until just a few weeks ago we had no nieces or nephews at all on my husband’s side of the family. But I am thrilled to announce that six weeks ago my sister-in-law had a little baby girl! Hooray for a niece!!! And this last weekend that precious baby was blessed at our church. (Our church’s equivalent of a baby christening or baptism.)
As we all know, I have a bit of a problem when it comes to baby headbands. I can’t stop making them. Sad, but true. So, naturally, when I found out a niece was on the way I knew that I wanted to make her a lovely headband for her baby blessing, along with a matching tiny bracelet.
When my sister-in-law got married I made her wedding jewelry, including the bracelet shown in the picture below. I realized that I still had leftover pearls and crystals from that bracelet, and I thought it would be special to make my niece’s blessing bracelet using those materials. Read along if you would like to learn how to do this yourself!
Here are the supplies that you will need to make a lovely, heirloom-quality baby bracelet. Most of them can be bought at a large craft shop, local beading store, or online.
* 4mm Swarovski Crystals
* tiny freshwater pearls
* a tiny sterling silver lobster clasp
* fine gauge beading wire (It is more flexible than the medium or heavy widths.)
* two crimp tubes
* a very, very small amount of chain, sterling silver if possible
* a single headpin or eyepin, sterling silver if possible
* crimp pliers or flat-nosed pliers, miniature round-nosed pliers, wire snips (You can buy a package of these tools at a large craft store for very cheap , and then if you get excited about jewelry making you can upgrade to nicer tools later on.)
Measure baby’s wrist. Standard infant bracelets are about 3 1/2 inches long. TINY, right?! Like, insanely. You will think it is too small, but it just isn’t. Babies are tiny. Lay out your pearls and crystals in a way that you find attractive.
String your crystals and pearls onto the beading wire.
Put one crimp tube on the end of your beading wire. Now put the wire through the clasp and then back through the crimp tube again, as shown. Use your crimp pliers or your flat-nosed pliers to seal the crimp tube. For flat-nosed pliers you just squeeze hard so it flattens. For crimp pliers you first use the inner divet of the pliers to squeeze and then the outer one. If you have them you will see what I mean. Now use your wire snips to snip off the extra beading wire.
Repeat the same thing on the other end of the bracelet, but loop the wire through the piece of chain rather than the clasp, as shown above. The reason I use a tiny length of chain on this side is so that the bracelet is adjustable in length.
This next part is optional. At this point you can be finished if you would like. However, I like to add a little dangling crystal as a finishing detail. Place a tiny crystal on a headpin or eyepin.
Use your round-nosed pliers to loop the headpin around (you can see a detailed picture demonstration of that in this earring tutorial), and then stick it through the chain.
Use your round-nosed pliers to grip the looped headpin so that is holds still, as shown above. Grab the long end of the headpin with your flat-nosed pliers and wrap the wire around the headpin a couple of times, as shown below.
Now use your wire snips to snip off that crazy, long wire end. Voila! You are finished! Wasn’t that easy? It will look precious on any little princess! Isn’t my niece sweet?
Don’t forget to check out the tutorial for the elegant baby headband that I made to coordinate with this sweet little bracelet! If you make either of these things for your little lady’s special day I would LOVE to see pictures! You can email them to me or share them on my Facebook Fan Page. Have a lovely day!
[…] Time to add the French netting. Start by gluing some along the bottom of the elastic. Now carefully wrap the netting around the flowers. Lastly, glue down the netting and trim. Cut a strip of white felt and glue it on top of the netting/elastic to prevent baby’s head from getting irritated. So sweet, and SO simple!!! Isn’t my niece sweet modeling her accessories? Be sure to check out the bracelet tutorial here. […]