Camera Strap Makeover

Michael and I leave for a trip to London and Paris this Friday.  The last time Michael and I did Europe, which was 5 and a half years ago now, we went for a month with nothing but backpacks, which means my wardrobe was limited to ribbed tank tops, Bermuda shorts, and flip flops.  Not this time, my friends!  I intend to be cute, and I’ve been doing my fair share of Fall shopping to this end. 

Then I realized that one accessory that will be on me at all times wasn’t quite fabulous enough --- my camera.  A camera strap makeover was in order.  Now that I’ve revealed my unhealthy love of all things gold to the world, you won’t be surprised to hear that I started this project off with a little gold fabric.  My vision here was something a little hippy chic with a bit of a (gold) edge. 

So, I cut my fabric into three strips about 3” wide.

I folded the raw edges in and then folded the strips in half, pinning along the way, to form three strips about 3/4” wide.

Then, I sewed the ends of the three strips together, slightly overlapping.

Braided them to a length about equal to my existing strap, removing the pins as I went along.

Finished the braid off with a stitch and a trim.

Once I’d made another braid of black fabric with a little stretch, I connected them by binding and tying the ends with a length of black ribbon.  Since I really didn’t want to have to grapple with recreating the hardware on the existing strap, I left a loop of the black ribbon free at each end to loop over the existing strap.

Then, I covered the bound ends with two little tubes I made from the black stretchy fabric.

I fed the existing strap through both the fabric tubes and the ribbon loops and reassembled onto the camera.  Then, I made a few quick stitches in various spots to tack things into place – including adjoining the two braids and the existing strap at the midpoint.

I like what I ended up with.  I don’t think Kate Spade will be selling these anytime soon, but it’s definitely more fabulous than the stock Sony strap. 

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