Leather Bracelets (with tutorial)... How do you wear yours?

After blogging and tweeting my Rocky Beach Leather Bracelet I was asked, more than once, how I made it look "like that", which in turn led on to several conversations about Trollbeads leather bracelets, with some people confiding that they avoid wearing them as they've not found a look they're happy with.

Today's post is all about different ways to wear a leather bracelet, or more accurately the different ways I wear my leather bracelets, and by request a step-by-step guide to creating my Rocky Beach Leather Bracelet.


Ways to wear a leather bracelet

When I first got my blue leather bracelet it was a snug fit; it's best to buy as snug as you can as leather will naturally stretch over time and you can always fasten it on a longer setting initially as you have multiple holes to adjust the length you wear it at.  Bracelets come in 3 different sizes so it is important to try one on to see what size suits you best, I wear the smallest one.

My first combinations were a few beads strung on the bracelet.  At first I could only get 3-4 beads on, but as the leather started to stretch I could fit more on.  I didn't do much else with it at this stage.

Trollbead leather bracelets are 1 long piece of leather that is split into 2 strands, these wrap around your wrist twice so you get 4 strands to play with a look.  The 2 strands have metal loops at the end that you attach to the small end of a Trollbeads lock, with the wider end attaching to the leather thick strand that has holes in.

Later I started to experiment with making the combinations more "messy", the before picture on the left below is just after I put the bracelet on, the after picture on the right is the bracelet "arranged" with a silver combination doubled up in a stack.

You can see there is a massive difference in how it looks from putting it on to "arranging it when on" to get the best effect.  Unlike making silver bracelets up - where all the arranging happens before you put the silver bracelet on finished - with leather it can be the opposite, a little twist or arranging can make all the difference; the important thing is to play and try out different styles to see what suits you best and what you like.

Another before and after picture on how I wore this one, sometimes less is more, here I twisted the 2 long strands together to give it more "texture" which also helps to keep the "2x3 bead combination" in place.

The following 2 photos are what I call "messy combinations".  The first is a mix'n'match of totally uncoordinated beads for a fun bracelet worn on an afternoon out, I was wearing dark jeans and a black top so the only pop of colour was on my wrist.  The second photo was another messy combination but with fewer colours. 

I love my first blue leather and I still get a lot of wear out of it, but 6 months later along came a brown leather bracelet and I reverted to a favourite 2x3 design for it's first outing.

I love the messy combinations I made in the photo below using my dragon beads, and the blue bracelet was an experiment with spring colours that only survived long enough for me to take this photo, it wasn't actually a combination I ever wore.

Below is my focal bead bracelet using two stoppers to keep this combination in place, I love this bracelet and it's a great way to wear a really big bead that didn't work for me on a silver bracelet.

One of my favourite brown leather combos was this one, made with my Ruby Rock bead and Chess lock worn at the front - a style I copied from my friend Mike who writes a blog over at Mike's Trollbead Adventure!  This creates a 3 strand look and lets you show off an ornate or special lock as well as your beads.

The two final combinations shown below are more recent, the first made with my Easter Swap Beads sent by my swap partner, and the second is how I'm currently wearing my brown leather showing off my new "craggy" amber.

So those are a variety of ways I've been wearing my 2 leather bracelets.

The combination I've had most questions about though has been my 2-tone Rocky Beach Bracelet shown below.

Rocky Beach Tutorial

Start by threading your beads on the leather bracelet.  On the left strand I put 3 beads on first, then 2 beads.  On the right strand I put on 2 beads and then 3 beads so you have 5 on each wrap around your wrist, 10 in total.

Close up of how this looks when you space them out in a line.

I did think about the order they went in, but not too much as I knew I was going to make a messy twisted combination... I spaced out the bubble beads, put Silver Lighthouse in the middle of a 3 bead combo and put Pebbles and Fossils on different stages (they are actually on the same strand which isn't important), just that one is one the 2nd wrap and one is on the 1st wrap around your wrist.

Then I attached the small end of the lock to the 2 metal ends, and I twisted the bracelet by holding the flatter larger end still and just twisting it around by the lock.  The photo below shows it locked so I could take the photo!

Now the tricky part, how to put it on "twisted"... or at least this is how I do it, the easiest way is to get someone else to do this but if you are on your own this is how I put it on (swearing optional).

I hold the end with the holes under my middle finger, as I bring the lock around, I then cross the lock with my other hand over the end and use it to hold that in place whilst I wrap the bracelet around a second time.

This then allows me to lock the the bracelet as the end is being held by the bracelet and I can concentrate on the lock.  Bear in mind that I was not only doing up the bracelet, but my other hand was taking the photos, so I've got no photos of me actually locking this bracelet as I only have 2 hands!!

The back of the bracelet locked, Trolltree lock does work on leather but if you're doing up twisted bracelets yourself it's probably not the easiest lock to use.  My handy tip for getting it off is that it's MUCH easier to undo the smaller end attached to the 2 metal loops than it is to undo the large end from the leather holes.

Below is a picture of the front of the bracelet before it has been arranged further, you can see that the effect you get is twisted strands along each of the 4 strands and that they are slightly twisted around each other as well as being individually twisted.

Once on I "arrange" the bracelet to suit, I do this by ensuring the front is very twisted so the 2 wraps are made up of twists around the beads, almost in a 1 over 1 under fashion - I don't twist the 2 wraps over each other.

And here is the finished bracelet, it stays like this all day, because the twists help to keep it in place, and I also wear it as a snug fit.  It ends up slightly different every time I do this but this is one of the things I love about twisted designs!

Would love to hear about how you wear yours if you have one, or if you've considered getting one?