DIY Scarf Camera Strap

Ever since I saw these handmade camera straps roaming pinterest I was adamant I could easily make one. (I have this terrible habit of thinking I can make that instead of wanting to pay for something…its a fault most of the time haha.)

After three years of having pinned these I finally made my own camera strap! I am in love with scarfs so I made a scarf camera strap. I loosely followed this blog and its instructions with a few modifications of my own. Feel free to head to that blog for more pictured instructions but I found that it need a little bit of extra instruction so here is my instructions…which was silly of me not to photograph the steps but ya know, mom brain wins on that one.

Supplies:

• Scarf (I bought mine from target, even infinity scarfs can be used)
• 2 split rings (aka the rings on most key chains)
• 2 chain closures (aka clip things which you’ll see a close up of here soon.)
• Scissors
• sewing machine or needle
• thread that matches your leather
• scrap of leather
• pen, pencil or chalk

This is a picture of the chain closure and split ring, so you know what they are. I had the hardest time finding these products at the hobby story labeled with those names.

Directions:

2. Draw an hour glass rectangle that gets skinny in the middle on the wrong side of the leather with a pen/pencil or chalk. Make sure the skinny middle is the size of your split rings. You will fold this in half at the skinny middle so you can mirror the shape.
4.  Cut out the shape.
5. Repeat steps one and two to create two pieces.
6. I found that sewing down the edges of the leather made the finished product look nicer, so sewing a hem basically. Or for all you non-sewers sewing over an itty bitty bit of the edges over so there is now raw edge showing.
7. Connect the chain closure to the split ring.
8. Slide the ring into the middle section of the leather and fold the wrong side in.
9. Measure out the length of the scarf you need to have your camera hang at the length you typically like. I like my camera to hang right at my belly button. So I used my original camera strap as a reference for the amount of scarf length I needed.
10. Fold the scarf in an accordion fold, small enough so that it fits into the leather.
11. If your scarf is thicker like mine I found binding about 3″ above each end with a rubber band helpful to get it to fit into the leather.
12. Place the scarf into the leather.
13. If the scarf is bulging out of the sides of the leather feel free to trim a little of the end to make a point at the end of the scarf but don’t cut above the leather line.
14. Sew edges around the outer edge.
15. I also found that I need to make an X from one corner of the leather to the other since I used a heavier scarf and my camera body/lens are a little bit heavier. (Note the X isn’t pictured in this as I found I needed this extra stitch after using the strap for a few shoots.)
16. Voila! You have a diy scarf camera strap for under $30 dollars!

Don’t you love DIY projects! I love this so much I made a second one…you know just in case this doesn’t match my outfit sometimes. 😉