How to make a fabric bracelet - upcycled from a jeans waistband

I sew and upcycle a lot, especially from old jeans and I wanted to find something that our girls could upcycle and sew for themselves and get a bit creative.

These bracelets are super simple and allow for plenty of decoration and creativity!

Here's how to make a fabric bracelet from a jeans waistband:

First of all cut the waistband from an old pair of jeans.

Unpick the belt loops and remove.

Fasten the button on the waistband and wrap it around your wrist for size. Remember to overlap the two pieces!

Cut the waistband the size you would like and lay if flat.

Then unfasten the button and overlap the two raw edges where you just cut and pin together.

Stitch using a zig zig stitch for strength in a box shape where the two pieces overlap. Use a denim or larger needle on your machine for this as the layers are quite thick. You could also hand stitch this if you don't have a sewing machine!

And that is your basic fabric bracelet finished!

Now comes the fun part - adding the embellishments.

For this one I added a fabric flower - just simple circles of varying sizes cut from denim and other scrap fabric. 

Place the circles on top of each other and stitch through the centre with a button to hold in place. Then snip around each circle to make the 'petals'.

Then scrunch the flower up and roll between your hands to make it look more like a flower!

And stitch it to the bracelet - hiding your previous stitching!

One finished flower fabric bracelet!

You can embellish these bracelets with anything you choose.

My girls chose beads, an old kids plastic necklace and some ribbon. They are all just hand stitched into place in designs they chose.

I want our girls to learn to create with upcycled materials, and these bracelets are simple enough for them to make by themselves, and flexible enough to make them with endless different designs!

What have you or your kids created with upcycled materials? Maybe you have an old pair of jeans you could try one of these bracelets with?

Homemade vs Packet Brownies - our experiment

A comment from Euan a couple of weeks ago prompted this experiment. He has a memory from when he was a kid of the best brownies he ever tasted - made from a packet.

So we decided to test which actually tasted better by making both home made and packet brownies at the same time.

The Packet Mix

There were a few different brownie mixes to choose from at the supermarket. After checking out the ingredients and finding that they're all basically the same, I chose the cheapest one - which incidentally had the highest proportion of chocolate chips in the ingredients list!

All we had to do to make was to pour the packet mix into a bowl,

add water, melted butter and eggs; mix together and pour into the pan, then bake for 20 mins.

Homemade Brownies

For the home-made brownies we sieved the dry ingredients together into the bowl, which then resembled the packet mix. To this we added eggs, melted butter (I use margarine) and chocolate chips. Mixed all together and baked for 16 mins.

In appearance, both brownie 'slabs' looked much the same. the homemade one had risen a little more.

We cut the brownies into sample squares from each type and all tried them out......

The verdict?

You could barely tell any difference between them. The home-made ones were slightly 'cakier' and a little moister in the centre, other than that - the same.

I have to say I was disappointed with the result. I would always say that I prefer homemade - and that of course it has a better taste, but I have to admit that for this one, I couldn't really tell the difference. 

This was in contrast to the last experiment we did like this with bought premade chocolate chip cookie dough vs homemade chocolate chip cookies. Then, the homemade was a clear winner!

But how about the brownies?  Well although the taste was the same, the packet mix plus added ingredients was about $4.20 whereas homemade cost about $2.75. So the homemade brownies were cheaper - and of course no preservatives or additives!

I will still stick to homemade brownies and other cakes and biscuits, but I'm not against trying out more packet and convenience foods so our kids can see the comparisons and make their own decisions about which they think is better.

How about you? Do you use packet mixes for baking cakes and cookies? Or do you bake from scratch?