DIY Snake Arm Cuff Jewelry

For the last few weeks, I’ve been inspired to make jewelry out of wire.

I wanted to do some no-sew DIY projects, and I have been excited about sharing these snake arm cuffs with you for some time now. Once you have the materials, they are super easy to make. (And since the materials are quite different from my regular DIYs, I will include affiliate links in the material list down below, so you can see pictures of what they look like, and if you decide to purchase them through the links, I get a small commission that helps me to keep this website going 🙂 But as always, no pressure to use the links 🙂 )

You can adjust how tightly it sits on your upper arm, so it doesn’t slip off if you choose to wear when you dance. These are great accessories to wear with your dance costume or even with a t-shirt.

In this video, you will see how I made these really easy snake arm cuffs.

Click here to sign up for the Sparkly Belly newsletter!

To make a snake arm cuff, you need:  

14 gauge wire (like this one)

Sandpaper (like this one)

Wire cutter (like this one for hard wire)

Round nose pliers (like these pliers)  

For decorating, I’m going to be using:

Rhinestones

E6000 (check here)

Craft tweezers (I like ones with bent ends like these ones)

Toothpick  

24 gauge wire (like this one)

A round glass bead  

The decoration material is optional 🙂    

How to Make DIY Snake Arm Cuff Jewelry

First, take out some wire. As you pull out the wire, try to keep the round shape, and form it into a circle that is the approximately the size of your upper arm. You can try on to get an idea. Then pull out some more so there is enough wire to go around your arm 4 times. And cut the wire.  

Polish the ends with sandpaper, so the ends are not sharp.  

Next, take your round nose pliers, and gently curl one of the ends about just less than 2cm or half an inch. This is going to be the head of the snake. I plan to place a glass bead here later, so if you are doing the same, make sure the head is big enough for the bead.  

Once you are happy with the shape of the snake head, use your finger to gently curve the wire upward from about 3 cm or just over an inch from the bottom of the head.  

Now at this point, try it on again, and make sure the coil fits your upper arm well. You can make minor adjustments later, but if you need to alter the size a lot, do it here. It should be nice and snug, a little bit on a tight side, so it doesn’t fall off your arm. But it shouldn’t pinch your skin.  

Then, locate a point on the bottom wire that’s directly below the head. Bend the wire from that part over to the left. From here, I like to gently curve the wire down then up a bit and down to represent the tail end of a snake. But really, this is such a simple design, and you can add as much or as little curves as you like. If you cut off any excess wire, sand the end of the wire again.  

So the base of the arm cuff is finished! You can wear it as it is, or if you are like me, you would want a bit more sparkles on this snake.  😉

So for the first one, I used E6000 to glue on rhinestones. To avoid putting too much glue, I put E6000 on a piece of scrap paper, and used tweezers to put E6000 on the back of rhinestones, then placed them on the wire. And I went back in with a toothpick to add a bit more E6000 to seal the wire to the back of the rhinestones.  

For the second design, I cut 3 cm or just over 1 inch piece of 24 gauge wire, and placed my round bead on the wire. Next, I placed it right where I wanted the bead, and wrapped the ends of wire around the thick wire a few times tightly and neatly. Then I just cut the excess wire, making sure the ends are facing away from my skin, and just pressed it with the pliers.  

And that’s it! These sparkly snakes will be lovely additions to your costumes. If you make it snug, the coil will keep the arm cuff in place. If you watched my last week’s veil video, I wore one of these arm cuffs when I filmed it, and it never fell off.  

If you make your own, please share on Sparkly Belly’s Facebook page, and sign up for the Sparkly Belly newsletter from the below link to get more DIY costuming ideas like this and free access to special patterns and resources only available to newsletter subscribers 😉  

Click here to sign up and get access to the subscriber only page 🙂

Thanks for reading, and keep sparkling!

P.S. Happy pinning 🙂