I am popping in this fine Saturday to share with you this very fun project that I came up with for a challenge I was asked to take part in. The fine folks over at Earth911 challenged me a month back to come up with an upcycled camera strap. Myself and 7 other fabulous bloggers had to create a camera strap from found/thrifted/already had materials. It was a blast! And I was the winner of the challenge!! Now I get to share with you how I made this fun/funky camera strap ….on the cheap! The materials I used were all things I had on hand…so hopefully you won’t have to look too far to make your own camera strap.

Supplies:

• Button down shirt (I used my hubs old jean shirt)
• scrap fabric or other shirts
• Heatbond iron on tape
• Leather roping (about 8 inches, 4 on each side. measure first to see where you want the camera to be on you)
• 2 lobster hooks
• 2 jump rings
• Pinking shears
• sewing machine

Steps:

1. Start by cutting the button down shirt at the seam where the shirt buttons line up. The strap should measure about 13 inches from the collar to end of the strap. You may want to measure on yourself to see where you want your camera to lay. Keep in mind the leather cording will add about 3 inches also. Pinking shears will work best for this. Cut all along the seam and back around the neck..leaving the collar intact.

2. Iron the collar piece flat.

3. Cut up squares of a coordinating fabric (I had about 30) (or use scrap from another shirt). My pieces were 1.5’” by 1” and I spaced them about 1/2 “ apart.

4.  Loop lobster clasp onto leather roping. Inside the seam on the bottom of the strap….insert your ends of the leather roping. Measure the piece of roping so that when the camera attaches to the end…it will be at a comfortable spot. About 3-4 inches of roping is good. Sew with a machine to attach leather roping to collar piece. 5. Place your heatbond tape on the flat “button hole” side of the strap and iron on the tape. Peel back the paper and place the fabric squares. Repeat on the other side of the strap after removing buttons. 5. Iron all the fabric squares onto the strap. Attach jump rings to the camera body. Attach lobster clasp to the rings. Thanks for all the fine folks who voted! I am so excited to have participated!

Have a great weekend!!
Where I share ideas:

BeDifferentActNormal, The36thAve, Whipperberry, TipJunkie, Tatertots&Jello, TodaysCreativeBlog, SerenityNow, PositivelySplendid, IHeartNaptime, ByStephanieLynn, TheDIYClub, CRAFT. MadinCrafts. HomeStoriesAtoZ, NotJustAHousewife