How To Make A Polished Gemstone Stretch Bracelet

Hi, I'm Kitty. And I'm Jennifer. And we're the O'Neill Sisters. And we're going to show you how to make a polished gemstone bracelet. This bracelet is made with real gemstones. So pretty. And we're using elastic cord, which means there's no clasp, which makes it really easy to wear. We're going to show you everything you need to know to make this bracelet, including how to feed on the beads and how to make a pattern with the spacers and the charms. Then we'll show you how to make the bracelet extra secure by passing the elastic cord through a second time. Finally, we'll show you how to tie the ends together and we have a special trick to hide the knot. Let's get started. To make the gemstone bracelet, you need 18 gemstone beads. These are white halite and they're 10 millimeters. You'll also need a Tree of Life charm with a jump ring. It's 15 millimeters. You'll need four crystal spacers. These are 6 millimeters. And we're going to put it all together on elastic beading cord. And to measure this cord, we've got a tape measure and we're also going to use clear nail polish as kind of a jewelry glue. You'll also need scissors and masking tape. And that's for a little trick we'll show you later. To make the bracelet, the first thing you're going to do is take your elastic cord. This is a 20-inch piece of elastic cord. And you're going to put a one-inch piece of masking tape on the end. Just a little piece. That's going to keep the beads from sliding off while you're beading. I'm just going to put masking tape like that over the elastic cord and then just fold it like that. Easy peasy. Very easy. Then we're going to find the other end of the elastic cord. And that's where we're going to put the beads. So to get started beading, we're just going to pick six beads at random and slide them on our elastic cord one at a time. So it doesn't matter what order these go in. All the beads are natural gemstones, so they all look a little bit different. So it really doesn't matter what order you put them on. And we made sure that the holes in our beads were big enough for this elastic cord. It has to go through twice, so that's something to consider. One more. That's our first six beads. There we go. So there are our first six beads. And now we're ready to put on our little spacers and our charm. So we'll put on a spacer and then that will be followed by a bead. The spacer has a hole in it the same size actually as the bead. And then a bead after that. I just forgot. I think I need to go a little faster feeding the cord into the bead like that. Yeah, you can try it and see what works for you better, whether you're right-handed or left-handed. Now another spacer. Put that spacer on. These just give it a little bling. And then I'm going to do another bead. And now we're going to put on our charm. So our charm already came with the jump ring on it like that. So we're just going to slide the jump ring onto the elastic cord. Yeah. There we go. And that'll give it a little bit of movement. That's fun. And then I'm going to do another bead and basically repeat the pattern that we just did on the other side. It's a mirroring. Yeah, it's like a mirror, right. So it'll go bead, spacer, bead, spacer, and then the rest of the beads. That's right. So we're just going to continue mirroring our little pattern that we did on the other side of our charm. And then we'll slide on the rest of the beads. And then we'll show you the next step. So we've got all the beads on the elastic cord and you can see the pattern here. And it goes two spacers on each side, separated by beads, and then the charm in the middle. And now we want to circle the bracelet all the way up so the last beads meet each other. So I'm going to do that right here. I'm just going to wrap the beads around like that. You can see this is the bracelet shape. And what we want to do now is feed the elastic cord all the way back through all the beads. But before we do, we want to make sure we leave a little tail out of the elastic on the end where the masking tape is. And that's because we want to use this little section. And that's going to be part of our knot when we get to the other end. And then I'm going to feed this elastic through all of the beads. So you can see there the bead has two cords now going back through. And you just do this one bead at a time. I'm periodically going to make sure that I still have a little bit of a tail there because the beads are going to want to slide onto that other end of the elastic. So I'm just going to continue feeding this elastic cord all the way back through all the beads until I reach the end and then we'll show you how to tie the knot. We're almost done with our bracelet. It looks so pretty already. And now we just need to tie the knot. So to do that, we want to start by removing this masking tape that we had on the end. And I'm just going to peel it off of the elastic here. And we're done with that. Just throw that away. And now we're going to tie the ends together. So I want to get all the beads tightened up next to each other before I tie those ends together. I don't want any gaps between the beads. So I'm holding both ends here and I'm kind of pulling them both at the same time. And you can see that that elastic cord goes through all the beads and then we have two ends. So that's how you can see that second pass through all the beads. So when you've got all these beads tightened up together, you want to just tie the ends together. This is the beginning. It's kind of like tying your shoes. It's the first step in tying your shoes. We're just tying the ends together. So I'm feeding that through and I'm going to pull that. Not too tight. And I'm going to do that again. I'm going to cross these over and the one that's crossing over the top is going to go under and through the loop. And then I'm going to pass it through one more time, just like that. So you can see it's gone around it two times. I'm going to pull that one down and pull it a little bit tight. Not too tight. That extra pass through will make the knot a little more secure. Yeah. And then the last thing I'm going to do is I'm just going to tie the ends together again. Cross one over the other, pass that end through, and pull it like that. Now I've got the bracelet all made, got my knot done. Now we want to trim the ends of the elastic cord and we're going to trim to about a quarter of an inch. Just leave a little piece there. Make sure you don't cut through the elastic that's going through the beads. So there's my knot. Those are my little ends there. And I'm going to cut here. Feel a little shorter than that. A tiny bit shorter. Here and here. And now I'm going to do a little trick here. I'm going to put a little drop of clear nail polish on that knot. I'm going to put it on both sides of the knot. It's going to act like glue. It's going to be our little bit of like jewelry glue, but with a much better applicator. We like this little brush. And then I'm going to take one of the beads that's adjacent to the knot and I'm going to slide it, while that nail polish is wet, I'm going to slide it right over the knot and those ends. See how it's hidden there? And that's going to dry inside that bead and glue that knot inside that bead. That's going to help secure it and also hide that knot. So now we're going to let this dry before we wear it, but we do want to show you how to put it on. You basically, instead of stretching it out to put it on, you just roll it. You kind of roll it on to wear it and to take it off. And that'll keep it from stretching out. And there's our beautiful, polished gemstone bracelet.