How to Make Kandi

Kandis are fun bracelets made out of colorful beads and string, twine, or whatever fits the theme. You can eithier get them from people you dance with, or make your own and share them at clubs and raves. It's always good to be wearing a little bit of extra color when you go out dancing; you know... you don't want to look like a total square or anything! In this tutorial I'll teach you how to get started making your own kandis ;).

Kandi making might seem sort of self explanatory, but when I first tried it I had quite a hard time figuring out exactly what to do, what kind of patterns would look cool, how to tie the knot, and etc... So, you could either go out and waste some supplies and spend some extra time trying to figure out what to do, or you could take some advice from the pro (just kidding).

1. Alright, so step one is to get some materials. You can look for bead vendors online to find some of the coolest beads out there, glow in the dark, multi-colored, and etc.. or you can do the usual and head over to your local arts and craft store and pick from whatever type of beads they have. For string, it's good to start with something stretchy until you figure out exactly what size bracelets you should be making. Of course if you plan on sharing you're gonna want to get the stretchy stuff all the time! Get some colorful beads, and then some lettered beads so you can write your rave name or other cool stuff on there.
   
2. Step 2, lay out your gear. Grab the scissors, and spread your string and beads out all over the table or floor your making you kandis on. It's a pain in the ass trying to digg through a bucket for the beads you want, unless it's a big bucket with lots of surface area of course.
   
3. Cut your string to a good size. what you want to do is wrap a bit of string loosely around your wrist and make sure you have about double the size you want, that way you'll have plenty of room to tie the bracelet once you're done making it.
   
4. Pick a word. In my opinion this is the best part of making kandis, just trying to figure out what words you want on your bracelets. The first thing I'd do is try to make a bracelet that has to do with you, or your raver name. Then I'd branch off and make ones that say things like "ur hot" or "plur" or something general. You can also mark your bracelets, by putting in a certain bead that only you do, like your own signature thing.
   
5. Put your word on the string first and then put beads on around it. You can do patterns or solid colors, the cool thing about kandi is that it's all about your own style and you can do whatever you want with it. A good number of beads for the average wrist size is about 26-28. 28 pushes a little bit on the large side for me, but there are some people with big wrists out there.
   
6. Now all you have to do is tie the knot, which is pretty hard to do... if you lack confidence (lawl). Grab both sides of the string and hold them together, so that there is an equal amount of string showing on each side. Then wrap the string around your finger and loop the tips inside. It's just like tying a water balloon to be honest. Then, push the knot down to the base where all the beads are, you don't want it to knot up at the top so there is a whole bunch of extra string! Pull the knot extremely tight, otherwise it will come undone. Once you get it really tight though, it'll be pretty hard to get it to come loose.

And there you have it, your done making your first kandi and now all you have to do is rinse and repeat!