{DIY} Luxe Tooth Bracelet

I have really been at a loss as what to call this, it’s a tooth bracelet, but it’s not. The beads are obviously not real teeth, they are dyed howlite beads shaped like lil fangs. So anyways, if you think of a better name for this bracelet, please, leave a comment and help a sister out. Toof charms? Sorry, I’m a little loopy.

To make this charming decoration for your wrist, you will need:

5 or more dyed howlite tooth beads
3 different colors of rattail. (I went with apple, jungle green and dark turquoise blue, previously seen here and here.)
Curb chain (previously seen here)
Wire (previously seen here)
Jump rings (previously seen here)
A clasp (Although in hindsight, I wish I would have used a toggle.)
Round-nose pliers
Needle-nose pliers
Wire cutters
Yarn needle (last seen here)

First, start out by preparing your beads. You’ll thread a piece of wire through. The fold each side of the wire over the top of the bead as shown. Next, use your needle nose pliers to bead one of the ends of wire up.

From there, snip off the extra wire and use your round nose pliers to create an eye like in this tutorial, but make sure to leave a little neck between the eye and the bead. Then wrap the other piece of wire around the neck and snip off any excess. Repeat with the rest of your beads and set aside.

Now, we are going to go back to grade school and doing a box braid with rattail instead of that plastic lacing stuff, you know, boondoggle. To start out, get 2 strands of apple green and 2 of jungle green and tie a knot, you’ll need to untie and re-tie that knot later for leave a pretty decent tail on the end. I’m no expert on box braiding so if you need a thorough refresher, click here. Make the box braid longer than your chain, when you sew the two together you are going to do two stitches per link so keep that in mind. Also, rattail is SLIPPERY, so be patient, it doesn’t have to be completely perfect and uniform. When you finish, tie a knot that is tight enough to hold but that you will be able to undo later. Now is a good time to attach your clasp to your chain.

Now here comes the tricky part, untie one of the knots on your box braid and add in one strand of your third color of rattail, in my case, dark turquoise blue. One the other end of your new strand of rattail, thread on the yarn needle.

Take the needle up through the chain and then through the first apple green stitch. You are going to keep going so that you go through each apple green stitch once which depending on the size of your chain (I used 10mm) will mean you go through each chain link twice.

Keep on trucking. When you get to the end of it, you may have to add more to your box braid or undo it some so that its the right length. Once you’ve done that add your new strand of rattail in and tie a knot with all three colors together. Make sure the knots are SUPER tight. You might want to through in a dot of super glue or something, remember, rattail is pretty, but it’s slippery!

Use sharp scissors to cut off the excess rattail and jump rings to attach the tooth beads to the green rattail on the opposite side of the chain. Voila, just look at that smile.