Winter won’t be over for a few more weeks. If you’re stuck indoors and looking for things to do, try your hand at rubber band jewelry making. You don’t need a loom to make these, and you can find the itty bitty rubber bands in the beauty section of Dollar Tree.
This post first appeared at Dollar Store Crafts, where you can find me every Tuesday.
I remember finger weaving as a child, so I showed my kids how to make their own links using their hands. They found this to be MUCH easier than using a loom. While the rubber bands at the craft store are inexpensive, if you’re one of the people who doesn’t live near a craft store you can find an inexpensive substitute at Dollar Tree. They sell multi-colored bands, too, but I opted for the pack of black rubber bands to create a more modern piece.
Supplies List:
- Hair bands
- Paper Clip
- (Optional) Dowel rods, chopsticks, or pencils
I taught my kids how to make this using two fingers, but this can become uncomfortable, so for this tutorial I used two dowel rods. You could substitute pencils, chopsticks, or any other similar object.
Step one: Slide a band over one stick, twist it, and slide the other end over the second stick. This is the ONLY band you will twist.
Step two: Slide two more bands onto the sticks.
Step three: Start with left side, lift the lowest band over the top two bands and release it in the center of the two sticks.
Step four: Repeat step three on the right side.
Step five: Add ONE band to the top of the sticks.
Repeat steps 3-5 until the chain is as long as you want it to be. Once you get the hang of it, this is a quick project and you can make a necklace in no time.
Step six: When you reach the desired length, use a paper clip to hold the last two bands in place, and join them to the first link you made. You can use jump rings or other jewelry findings instead, if you have them.
You could also wrap it to make a bracelet, like I did. I think the black hair bands look surprisingly hip when they’re looped like this, and I bet most people would never bet that you made it with hair bands from the dollar store!
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