DIY Bracelet with watch in snake – or lambskin

Make your own smart bracelet with a watch and beads.

Here we show you how to make a smart bracelet with a watch, beads and charms.
We'll show you how to make a simple watch strap from leather cord and then add beads, a watch face and a jewellery clasp.

Note! As this is an older blog post, several of the jewellery parts shown are no longer available on smyks.dk, but we refer to alternative jewellery parts that can be used instead :-)
 

For the watch bracelet in the example, a black dial is used as well as genuine 5 mm snakeskin cord and some black bracelet beads with crystals, but you can easily use round sewn lambskin cord or other types of cord, such as leather cord or paracord, which are both cheaper and available in several colours, and watches and charms are also available in silver, black, red gold-plated and gold-plated.

You need the following materials:

Jewelry glue
2 x snake leather cord 5mm of approx. 65cm (sold uncut when buying more)
1 watch face
1 magnetic clasp 8mm
2 x crystal spacer bars
Various beads and charms.
This link guides you to everything you need and here you can also buy a finished bracelet watch.

Take one of the pieces of snakeskin cord, fold it in half and feed it through the strap holder of the watch face. See the picture for reference.

Then take the second piece of snakeskin cord and feed it through the other side of the watch face. Then put a crystal spacer bar on each side.

Now attach the different beads and charms as you wish.

All that's left is the clasp, but before you glue it on, you need to test the length of the bracelet. You can do this by pressing the ends of the string into each part of the clasp without glue and carefully putting it on, or get someone to help you. If the bracelet is too big, cut a little of the cord and test again until it fits.
 

When the length fits, glue the two ends of the snakeskin cord into the magnetic clasp on both sides. Apply jewellery glue to the clasp, making sure the glue is applied as a strip along the inside of the clasp and not at the bottom of the clasp, and make sure you glue in the right holes on the clasp. Squeeze the ends of the string tightly together between your thumb and forefinger while pressing them all the way into the magnetic lock with a screwing motion to distribute the glue. If glue squeezes out along the edge, you've used a little too much glue. Take a piece of cardboard, such as a business card or other stiff paper and use the sharp edge of the paper to scrape off the excess glue. Never use your fingers or a cloth to remove excess glue, as this can easily result in stains that cannot be removed.
Glue the other part of the magnetic clasp to the other end in the same way.
Then let the bracelet dry for 10 minutes.
Your snakeskin watch is now complete!
 

For the watch above we have used round stitched leather cord (lambskin) thickness 5mm, beads and a watch face in steel and silver plated.
 

Bracelet with watch and round stitched black leather

Examples of bracelets with Paracord and watch.

The following materials have been used for these bracelets:

We have used paracord wrapped 5 times and a magnetic clasp with a 5 mm hole for these watch-bracelets. For materials see bracelet with watch here.
Remember to melt the ends of the paracord with a lighter to make sure they don't fray before gluing them to the clasp.
You can also experiment with making a knotted strap for your watch instead.
In the following blog post, we show you how to knot with parachute cord / Paracord:
DIY knotted paracord bracelets



Have fun :-)