How to Make a 4 Strand Braided Friendship Bracelet using Waxed Cord

	Knot-It Waxed Brazilian Cord, 2-Ply Polyester 0.7mm Thick, Four 15 Yard Bundles, Ocean Dreams SKU: XCR-4919 $10.95
	The Beadsmith Mini Macrame Board For Braiding 9x6 Inches SKU: XTL-6120 $13.99
	Fiskars 5 Precision Tip Scissors - Super Sharp SKU: XTL-5700 $7.45

Note: This audio transcript is auto-generated and may not be completely accurate.
hi this is kat with beadaholique.com and in this video i'm going to show you how to do a four strand braid friendship bracelet and today i'm going to be using the waxed brazilian cord by not it by the beadsmith so i brought out a few of the color variations here that we have so as you can see i thought this would be perfect for the four strand braid because we have four colors so here's one example and we also have some other ones i love this pink one it's really monochromatic and i did want to do that one but i thought it would show a little bit better if i had more contrasting colors so i'm going to be using the mini macrame board you do not have to use this but i thought it would be a really great way to show you another use for it we are going to need a pair of scissors and the only other thing that we're going to need is a ruler so if you have that ready to go let's go ahead and get started okay so the first thing we're gonna do is we are going to cut off about 18 inches of each color and we just need one single strand so i'm just going to remove some of that here and cut off 18 inches and you can kind of eyeball it it doesn't have to be exact because we're going to do a little bit of a different finishing technique on this one in that we are going to not do a sort of slide knot closure i do have a video showing you how to do that square knot slide closure so if that is something that you're interested in be sure to check that video out all right and let's use this side here there we go all right see if i can try to do both of these at once now this is a really nice coated waxed cord and what i love about it is that it really does stay nice and stiff as you're working with it so it's really easy to manipulate and the ends don't come frayed you can use a lighter if you want on the ends but you don't have to okay so i've gathered all four ends here on one side let's see how good my measuring is there we go i can set my ruler to the side so now i'm going to come down and just you know kind of eyeball it about four or five inches or so and we want to make sure that we have a nice little knot just a very simple overhand knot just like so all right i'm going to pull that down just like that all right now the length on this side that's why i said about four or five inches this is where your adjustable length is gonna come from what's gonna happen is we're gonna braid on this side and then this is gonna be your closure in the back so however long you want that to tie to be a little knot in the back for a friendship bracelet style that's going to be a permanent closure so you can leave a little bit extra here if you're not sure but as you learn how to do this braid it's a very thin braid so it's not like we need a lot of cord because it's not going to bulk up to the side so you can sort of judge that if you want to if it makes you feel better leave a little extra for the first one that you do and then you can sort of shorten it as you learn the size that you want okay so now we're going to do is we're going to come in with our macrame board right here and i'm going to set this into that center notch now let me just squeeze that in there there we go because it is a wax cord it's not going to slip out you can see i can tug it pretty good and it's not going to slip out so now what i want to do is separate all of my strands here and i'm going to just kind of figure out how i want that to lay lay down like that so you can see that i have the black the white the sea foam and then the coral here okay so this is a really easy four strand braid so let me just center this here for you there we go okay so what we're going to do is we're going to do a little bit of a weaving method and what we're going to do is we're going to take always with our left hand here we're going to take this and we're going to go underneath that first cord so we're going to take the black and go underneath the white and then we're going to go over the green and then we're going to go under the coral so that's that first braid so now obviously we want to bring that up nice and close there and now we're going to do the exact same thing but now we've rotated to the white so you're always going to take that first strand go underneath the second strand over the third strand and underneath the black strand so you see how that is so i wanted to keep it really loose but now what i'm going to do here is i'm going to kind of tighten everything up and come in here with both hands and then now what i'm doing is just kind of making sure that braid starts nice and tight right up at the top so taking one go under over and then you can see me flip and just kind of do that maneuver so that'll get it to sort of sit underneath and what i'm doing up here with my left hand is i'm just pinching that together so that that braid stays flat but what is also happening is because we have waxed cord it's actually going to kind of stiffen it up a little bit and make sure that it is a nice flat little braid for us okay so again taking that coral going under going over and going under and kind of do that flip maneuver there and you can see that our braid is starting to formulate now this is actually a nice easy braid if you need to set it down you can set your cords into the macrame board and walk away so you can set it into like the separate little notches here down at the sides and at the bottom so it's a great way if you are traveling or something and you are working on something and you need to put it down okay so that is the whole method and just continue to braid i'm going to show you what it looks like when i am finished here in just a moment and then i'll show you how to finish off the other side and then we'll talk a little bit more about those clasps okay so i've done my four strand braid here and i just want to bring out the ruler so you can see so from the end of my braid here to the very top is about five and a quarter inches or so so from about not to not it's going to be about five and a half so i just want to then take this off of the macrame board i'm just going to set that aside and now i just want to show you up close what it really looks like so when you are looking at this you'll notice that that black thread really has its way of weaving through there and really standing out so i love using that contrasting color like that all right so now what we're going to do is we're going to come to one end here that we didn't finish and take this and you can see how much i have left over so what i'm going to do is just take and do an overhand knot very simply and pull and bring that just to where the base of that braiding stops and go ahead and pull tight you can kind of pull on each individual strand to make sure that our knot is nice and tight okay so just again so you guys can see some sizing because we always have a couple of you know ideas with the sizing here so from braid to braid i've done about five and it goes closer to about five and a half now that i've done my knot but it's five and a half from about knot to knot and then i started on this side here so i have an additional four inches on one side and i have an additional six inches on the other so i hope that helps you and i started with 18 inches so as you are doing this uh that's kind of the best way to i can help guide you because you're going to talk about oh well what does that equal so i have a six and a half interest so around my wrist i can tie it and there's about an inch or so in the back there which actually equals you know pretty pretty well pretty dead on all right so yeah so six six and a half so what you can do now is you can take these cords and tie an overhand knot there or what you can do is you can crisscross them and you can take an extra piece of strand and do a sliding square knot and then tie knots on the ends so we do have a video for you showing that but what i'm going to do here is just really simply i'm just going to come together tie them in a nice overhand knot just like so and then you can tie them in a second knot to attach it to the wrist and to keep it there because this oops getting all combobulated there we go and just tie that overhand knot and then go ahead and tie another knot and bring that together so now you have you can pull it tight and what you can do now is you can come in and you can trim off these ends you can also tie individual knots on each end to keep it from slipping through but this is going to be pretty tight this is waxed cord so it's going to kind of stick to itself so what i'm just going to do is i'm just going to come in and i'm just going to give it a nice little trim here in the back going through all those cords leaving about an inch or so on the ends now the other thing that you have the option to do is you can take a lighter and you can burn each individual end it does have wax on it please use caution if you decide to do that but that'll just kind of help seal it a little bit as well but this is a nice little friendship bracelet style it's a four strand braid and you can use the knotted waxed brazilian cord to achieve this look i hope you enjoyed this video you can see even more tutorial videos and shop all of these supplies by heading over to beadaholique.com you