I confess, I ended up giving up trying to blog this summer, partly due to the gorgeous weather but also in part due to my brother and family moving back to the UK and ending up living with us for a month or two whilst they waited to move into their home. Anyway, the end is in sight so I feel safe attempting to get back to blogging properly... woo hoo!

So I thought I'd start with some very simple bead bracelets, the sort of thing you can do with the kids on a rainy weekend...an event which sadly I think will become more frequent until next spring/summer. Hey ho, the autumn has it's beauty too...I just love it when the leaves begin to turn, don't you?

Anyway, I was asked to come up with a couple of designs for bracelets that weren't just a case of stringing beads onto a piece of elastic and tying a knot. That said there's nothing wrong with doing that especially if the age of the children dictates that level of simplicity. The one thing I would highly recommend though is that you thread the elastic through your beads twice (especially if it isn't very thick) and then hide the knot in the centre of a bead by adding a dab of glue to it...

When dry, you can trim the ends with scissors.

However, if you're looking for something a little more involved then why not try one of these....

This bracelet involves creating a sliding opening as the beads are strung onto cord not elastic. It uses the basic square macramé knot (one of the first knots I remember learning as a girl guide) and is still pretty simple to do. For full instructions check out project KP/0014 - Bead Tassel Bracelet.

Alternatively you could try this one, KP/0015 - Ladder Bracelet, which shows another way to string beads for a bracelet and utilizes a bead for the clasp.

Last but not least there's this one...

...which uses the macramé half knot to create a spiral pattern between the beads. Again,  it uses a bead, this time like a toggle, to create the clasp. For full instructions check out project KP/0016 - Purple Macramé.

All three bracelet instructions can be found in the children's section of www.Projects4Crafters.com and all the materials are from Efco!