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I made these pretty beaded amber wrap bracelets for my friends for Christmas. Each one took less than an hour to make, so naturally making five of them took me … four weeks.

It started back in December when I decided that I would make matching bracelets for an upcoming gift exchange with a few of my friends. This was after those two evenings of reattaching doll heads, and I was excited to come up with another handicraft project to work on.

Given that I’m both green and cheap, I was happy that I’d be able to reuse something that I already had lying around in the house. As a family with three kids, we’ve gone through a lot of amber necklaces, and I always throw the outgrown or broken necklaces in a box so that I can reuse the beads to make jewellery for myself. Or at least, that’s what I’ve been telling myself for eight years now.

Finding Amber Necklaces

Once I came up with the bracelet idea, I was eager to get started. I ran to my room to retrieve the beads.  The necklaces, of course, were nowhere.

I looked everywhere I could think of. I looked in my craft supply cupboard and my jewellery box and my stash of shiny choking hazards that I keep hidden from both my one-year-old and my-four-year old. I looked through my knitting supplies. I looked under my bedroom dresser – the one that holds my clothes. I looked under my other bedroom dresser – the one that holds my yarn. You have one of those too, right?

I have no idea where all the amber went.

You know, some people believe that amber has magical properties. I can assure you that it does, based solely on it’s ability to completely disappear and then reappear months and months later – usually in the middle of your living room floor.

After a frantic night of searching, I put out a call on Facebook: does anyone have old necklaces that I could have? Several of my friends said yes — but they didn’t know where the necklaces were. See? More proof of amber’s magical ability to disappear. Thankfully I one friend was able to locate her stash of broken-necklaces-that-will-someday-be-made-into-something-else; she generously sent the bag to me and I was all set. (Thank you Tanja!) I had five whole days to make the bracelets. No sweat.

I knew right away that I wouldn’t have enough beads to do all six bracelets (five for my friends, one for me), but that wasn’t a big deal. I really love the look of bracelets that mix up amber with other beads. I headed over to the craft store and picked a bunch of beads at random. And I bought a bead design board for organizing the beads. And I wasn’t sure what kind of cording I’d need, so I picked out a roll of soft suede. My project ended up costing a touch more than I expected, but I figured that the kids would enjoy having any leftover supplies for their own handicraft projects. Why, that meant I could count it as a homeschooling expense. How could I not spend the money if it would enrich my children’s education?

Five Days until Gift Exchange

I was ready to start. I watched a quick video on how to do the ladder stitch and then I got out my supplies: suede cord, assortment of beads, all-purpose thread, sewing needle, and Season One of Downton Abbey on the computer.

First, I put my beads on the bead board and rearranged them a few times until they looked just the right amount of “randomly sorted”. I cut my suede cord and threaded it through a button, tying a knot to secure it. Then I measured out the 16 feet of thread that I’d need for sewing the beads.

16 feet.

Have you ever measured out 16 feet of thread? I pulled and I pulled and I pulled from the spool, counting out foot by foot. As I pulled, the thread pooled on the floor and tangled itself into a giant polyester tumbleweed. I picked it up and tried to find an end so I could start unravelling, but clearly it was a lost cause. I threw the whole mess in the garbage.

Again, I measured out 16 feet.  This time I was more careful to stop it from tangling. Once the full amount was measured out, I threaded it onto the needle and slid the needle to the middle so that my thread was held double. This effectively meant that my working length was just 8 feet – much more doable than 16. I carefully poked the needle through the suede knot and then pulled all 8 feet of thread through. It immediately tangled together at the end, creating a riculously stubborn knot.

I put the project down and retreated to the kitchen to make a cup of tea.

Five minutes later, I sat back down with my mug and decided to tackle the knot rather than measure out another 16 feet of thread. It took a full episode of Downton Abbey to get the knot out. Finally I was able to put my first bead on. I pulled the needle through the bead’s hole, then looped it over the cord and pulled it back through the bead again. It snagged, but I was quick enough to untangle the thread before the knot got too tight.

From there on, I was able to put the rest of the beads on without much trouble. The further along I went, the more thread I used up and the easier it became. By the time I got to the end, I was feeling good.

I knotted off the cord and carefully examined the bracelet. The beads were beautiful. The workmanship was … well … uneven. Oh well, it was the first one. The next bracelet would be better.

At this point it was well after midnight, but I was so pleased with myself for finishing the first bracelet that I started a second one. I measured out 16 feet of thread and then put on the first bead. The thread immediately tangled together. Honestly, it was like working with leftover spaghetti noodles. Covered in super glue. In a bowl of molasses.

I packed up and went to bed.

Four Days until Gift Exchange

The next day I went back to the craft store and bought more beads. I figured that I had a better idea now of what size and colour would work, and I could always come back later on and return the beads that I didn’t use, right? I was confident that, in the end, I’d come in under budget. Or reasonably close.

That night, I pulled out my supplies again. I was more careful this time. I knew what I was doing. I gave myself more workspace. I was sure that everything would go more smoothly.

It did. I made it right to the end of the second bracelet before I realized that I had cut the leather cording too short and that the bracelet wouldn’t be long enough. I put it to the side to deal with later.

I started the next bracelet. The thread knotted up right away and when I tried to untangle it, I snapped it in half. I couldn’t figure out how to elegantly add more thread in the middle of the bracelet so I took the whole thing apart and started again. This time, I didn’t measure out enough thread though, so again, I couldn’t make the bracelet long enough. Why was this happening to me? I took it apart. Again.

I decided to call it quits for the night, given that it was well past midnight and all my bracelets had been failures. With a yawn, I slowly started to pack up my supplies and then proceeded to drop half my beads on the floor. It turns out that my hardwood floors are almost the exact same colour as amber beads. I spent the next 30 minutes as a broom zombie, sweeping them all up so that my baby wouldn’t eat them in the morning. Can you imagine if he had? “Here’s a bracelet, dear friend. The beads have actually passed through my son’s entire digestive system, so now they’re extra valuable. Just like kopi luwak, that really expensive coffee bean that is collected from cat poop.” It’s a thing. Believe me, I used to work at Starbucks.

I didn’t work on the bracelets for the next two days. I just … no.

One Night until Gift Exchange

On the night before my gift exchange, I pulled out my supplies. In a sudden epiphany (I’ve been full of them lately), I realized that the thread didn’t need to be a continuous 16 feet long – I really only needed two strands that were each 8 feet. If I cut two 8 foot strands and then held them each double with the needle in the middle, I would effectively have 4 strands of thread that were each 4 feet long. So. Much. Better. I was able to get one more bracelet almost all the way done before another knot appeared out of nowhere. It took another entire episode of Downton Abbey to untangle. At this point, I was practically in Season Three.

I left the last two bracelets and went to bed. Surely if I had this much trouble working on them at night in a quiet living room, it would go much better during the day with three children running around. Right?

As I climbed into bed, I noticed that I wasn’t feeling so hot. I lay down and immediately fell into a deep, satisfying sleep that lasted a good 20 minutes. Then I spent the rest of the night up with my one year old; he apparently came down with a cold at that exact hour and suddenly had a barking cough that reminded me of that famous seal that took up smoking. What? That’s not a thing? I was too tired to know what was real any more. By the morning it was obvious that all three kids were sick. I was too, but not as bad as them. I was just healthy enough to get up and take care of everyone else. Sob.

Halfway through the day, I told my friends that I couldn’t join them for the Christmas gift exchange due to my plague-monkey status. Then I tucked the bracelets away until after Christmas, knowing that I now had three more weeks before I’d see my friends again.

Starting Again

I waited a long time before I pulled the bracelets out again. When I finally laid them on the kitchen table, I gave them a careful once-over.  The beads looked pretty but the sewing didn’t. The thread didn’t lay evenly from bead to bead. Sometimes it wasn’t pulled tight. It seemed to keep catching on the suede, which was square shaped. I looked at pictures of other bracelets online and I realized that everyone else used a smooth, round cord on the outsides instead a square-shaped suede.

I decided I had to start over. The next day, I went to the craft store and bought more cording. And more beads.

At home, I started my first bracelet with the round cord. I carefully measured out the thread and started sewing the beads. My instincts were right – the round shape of the cord made a huge difference and the thread was able to lie more nicely against it. I kept adding beads. Then the thread tangled. I found where I had left off on Downton Abbey and picked out the knot. After an episode or two, I finished the bracelet. It looked much nicer than the original ones.

Again, I started to feel the pressure of the deadline. I wanted to finish at least one more bracelet before going to bed, but it was 11:00 at night and I wasn’t sure I had the strength to tackle another length of thread. Then I remembered – totally out of the blue – that I had a kind of waxed polycord in the basement that I had purchased last year for a different project. But it would probably be too thick to thread through the beads, no? I quickly found it and gave it a try. It worked, and given how much thicker it was than all-purpose sewing thread, I wouldn’t even need to double it up. I measured out a scant 8 feet.

Working with the waxed polycord kind of felt like using dental floss. For a brief second, I thought about using actual dental floss because it would give the bracelet a festive pepperminty smell. Or not.

The bracelet finished in record time. There were no tangles of any kind. No snags. I was so pleased with how well it went and I couldn’t wait to start the next one … except that I couldn’t stop thinking of dental floss when I looked at it. I decided that I needed to find a brown version in the morning. Then I promptly knocked over my bead board and spent the next 30 minutes sweeping up beads before heading for bed.

I hate beads.

The next afternoon, just one day before I’d see my friends, I drove out in a snowstorm to the store that sells the waxed polycord. I picked a nice shade of chestnut brown and then drove home. I waited until the kids were in bed and pulled out my beads again. This time, the bracelet practically made itself. I quickly made a second bracelet, then left the final two the next day.

The following afternoon, with my girls gone out and my son down for a nap, I pulled out the beads for what I hoped was the last time ever. I made two bracelets in no time at all, and then, because I couldn’t stop thinking of dental floss, I remade the white-threaded bracelet as well. Five bracelets. Done. And they were pretty, and I loved them.

I love them almost enough to make one for myself too. Almost, but not quite.

Tomorrow I’ll post a tutorial on how to make the bracelets in case you have your own necklaces to upcycle. I recommend you find waxed polycord and round leather cording before starting. And at least a couple seasons of Downton Abbey.