After seeing these all over pintrest and finally buying a bag of lolly sticks I decided to venture into the world of bending wood.
How to:
To bend, boil lolly sticks in water for 30 mins, allow to soak for 30 mins. Bend into a glass smaller than your intended size (this will swell up after painting and then go a bit loose on release) then leave to dry overnight. I found it helped to also leave to dry on a radiator so the wood goes properly hard again. Boil twice as many as you actually want to allow for breakages. Wood splits easily.
It is as easy as that, I imagined bending them would be so much harder than it was!
With the ones that don’t quite bend as much as you’d like, push a hole in the ends and tie through yarn. The extra ‘edge’ stops the bracelet falling off your wrist, I find you don’t need to pull it too tight as long as the bracelet has curved enough to at least shape the top of your wrist. Before piercing, use insulation tape to stop the wood splitting. I used buttons instead of knotting the ends.
I think they look fun, but my favorite (the one I’ve been wearing) is my newspaper print one. I paper mache’d using block text passages from a magazine, the paper was not glossy or waxy to allow for the glue to stick. After covering the whole bracelet I put it back in the glass to dry hard. It looks simple and I like trying to read the paper bits.
Bit of fun, kept me quiet while my manpal watched the superbowl. =D
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