DIY Camera Strap

Posted by Marcea

My daughter is a bit of a photography buff. She uses the DSLR camera my dad had and carries it with her when we go on adventures. She's only 9 but very creative so I wanted to try to make her a distinctive camera strap to use with the camera. 

After looking around, I found this fun camera strap project from Teva and Leah Duncan.  As you can see from their pictures, the clips fit directly onto their camera. Unfortunately my daughter’s camera has very thin slots to hold a cord at the end of the strap so the clasps I bought were a too thick to attach directly to the camera. No worries – we attached the strap to the camera case to dress it up!

Here are the steps to make the strap:



Materials

2 yds 1/8” leather

(2) metal swivel clasps  

Needle and thread

(2) rubber bands

Scissors or rotary cutter

½ yard knit or jersey fabric

Fabric glue

Toothpicks

 

Directions

Cut your fabric into (5) 2” wide x 48” long strips. Make sure you cut along the grain of the fabric. Pull on the ends of the fabric a few times. This will help the fabric curl into itself.

 

Put all (5) cut pieces of fabric together and hold them together with a rubber band. Put the strands on a table and use a piece of heavy tape to hold them down.



 

Next you’re going to make a 5 strand braid. I printed out some numerals, 1 through 5, and taped them by each strand of fabric to help me keep track of them while I braided.

 





 

After you’ve braided to the end, take the group of fabric and slip it through one of the swivel clasps. Glue it down (about 1 inch) to close it over the clasp. Use pins to hold the fabric down and trim the remaining fabric on the end. Sew a basic whip stitch on the end near the swivel clasp to help secure.




 

 

Take 1 yd of the leather and wrap it around the end above the swivel clasp. To hold it take some glue and apply on the underneath of the leather. Tie the leather in a knot and snip of the end.

Repeat the clasp, glue, sewing and leather steps on the opposite side. Let everything dry according to the glue’s directions before attaching your camera.

Now go out and take some fantastic pictures!





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