Cardboard Loom Bracelets
In honor of Earth Week reuse some cardboard and celebrate the arrival of spring by making a bright fun friendship bracelet! Unlike usual friendship bracelet making methods, we will be using a loom that will make the bracelet making process easier.
For centuries, people used looms to combine thread into fabric. While our loom isn’t going to create clothes, it is going to be a tool that we use to help us create a bracelet using a lot of different strings. By using this tool, we can keep more pieces of thread organized than we could if we were just using our hands and the knots that make a friendship bracelet are going to seem like they are being created automatically. Who are you making your friendship bracelet for?
Materials:
• 7 strands of embroidery or other thin thread
• Cardboard
• Scissors
• Drinking cup or something round to trace a circle
• Pencil
• Ruler (optional)
Directions:
1. Put the drinking glass upside down on the piece of cardboard. Trace around the cup
2. Cut out the circle you traced
3. Use a ruler, and draw a line dividing the circle in half vertically. Draw a second line dividing the circle in half horizontally. Draw a third line dividing the circle in half diagonally, and a fourth line dividing it in half diagonally again. Your circle should now have 4 lines total and look a pie
4. Move around the circle and at the end of each of the lines, cut a slit into the circle about 1/4 inch. You should have 8 slits total
5. Poke a small hole in the middle of the circle with your pencil. The cardboard is now your loom
6. Measure 7 strands of thread that are the length of the child’s arm from your wrist to your elbow
7. Take your 7 strands of thread, and tie them together, leaving about a half-inch of thread on the other side of the knot
8. Push thread through the hole in the middle, leaving the knot on one side of the cardboard, and the loose thread on the other.
9. Place one piece of thread in each of the slits, you will have one empty slit remaining
10. Pick up your circle and hold it so that the empty slot is centered at the bottom of the circle.
11. From the empty slot, count up 3 slots to the left
12. Take the thread from the 3rd slot, and move across the loom to the empty slot
13. Move the cardboard loom so that the new empty slot is centered at the bottom of the circle
14. Repeat steps 10-12, you will start to see the bracelet emerge on the other side of the cardboard loom
15. Keep repeating steps 10-12 until the bracelet is the desired length or you almost run out of thread
16. Carefully remove all the strings from the slits,
17. Tie all the newly removed strings into a knot with the other side of the thread. Wear your bracelet or share it with a friend.
More Fun:
• Did you know there are a lot of different kinds of knots and they have different purposes? Use leftover string or a larger piece of yarn to try making the knots found in this video!
• Want to know more about traditional looms? Check out this video!
