In my last “Making Your Own Holiday Jewellery” post, I showed you how to make some  Drop Earrings . Today, I want to show you how to make a simple and stylish foot bracelet.

I love wearing foot bracelets in the summer. I believe that my feet and especially ankles look bare without anything around them when wearing flip flops for instance. They just look and feel naked. A foot bracelet definitely solves that problem.

For this foot bracelet, I opted for a blue colour scheme. I started by looking for beads that compliment the colour blue and that go well together. In the end, I used beads of different shades of blue, white, silver and black. I also wanted a bit of variety in terms of shapes. Hence, I used bugle and oval shaped beads.

If you are out of design ideas or have no idea where to start, look at some jewellery shops and websites to get some inspiration. I always go to Accessorise to get some ideas and to get my creative juices flowing.

WHAT YOU NEED

• See-Through Elastic String
• Assorted Seed Beads
• A Selection of other small Beads
• Oval Beads (the black once)
• Bugle Beads (the blue long once)
• One Statement Bead ( I used the Scarab Beetle)
• Scissor

DESIGN AND HOW TO MAKE IT

To start your foot bracelet, measure the see-through elastic string. Take some string and put it around your ankle. Decide if you want the foot bracelet to be tight or loose. Hold the string together as if it was a finished foot bracelet and see if you can get it off your foot easily. If you are happy with the tightness, cut the string with some extra length so you can fasten the knot easily at the end.

Next, think about a colour scheme you like. Then look at your bead selection to see what beads you have available. I would recommend using more or less same sized beads and beads on the smaller side. Otherwise your foot bracelet will get a big too big and it would look bulky on your ankle.

Once you are happy with your chosen beads, start coming up with a design. This is mostly trial and error to be honest and might take some time as you are trialling different combinations.

For my foot bracelet the sequence is as follow:

• 4x White Seed Beads
• 1x Silver Bead
• 1x Dark Blue Bugle Bead
• 1x Silver Bead
• 6x Light Blue Seed beads
• 1x silver bead
• 1x blue wooden bead
• 1x black oval bead
• 1x blue wooden bead

This is my bead sequence that I repeated 4 times. I put the scarab beetle after I completed the sequence twice as I wanted a statement bead in the middle.

After you threaded all your beads, test your foot bracelet. Tie one knot and hold the ends of your string tightly together. Put the foot bracelet around your ankle before you fasten and secure it with more knots to see if it fits and how it looks. If you are happy, fasten it with two or three knots in total. Cut of the overhanging ends.

Depending on the size or thickness of your ankles, you might need to adjust the sequence a little. Perhaps you need to add one extra round of the sequence. Or perhaps your ankles are smaller than mine and you need to remove some beads.

If you like my design sequence and want to replicate it, but need to adjust it slightly to fit your needs, I would recommend playing around with the seed beads. It is very easy to add or remove some of these as most of us have plenty of them and they are a good space filler.

A foot bracelet can be made in no time and you do not need a lot of beads as well. That is  why I love making bracelets in general as they are so easy to make. You really do not need any skills for this at all apart from being able to thread some beads. And I believe everyone can do that. It is a quick, simple and cheap craft to decorate your feet.