There’s this guy who has the World’s Largest collection of surfboard wax. He’s put a lot of it online at surfwaxmuseum.com and it’s a fascinating website about this piece of surfing ephemera. And I thought I had a lot of surf wax in my garage, cluttering up my shelves.

Given that most surfers go through a fair bit of surf wax in their life, I’m really happy to see a lot of the big surf companies move away from plastic wrap on wax. It was a common piece of trash around here to pick up on the beach. Boo.

Now, a couple of the big companies (Mr. Zog’s Sex Wax, Sticky Bumps, Mrs. Palmer’s) are selling their wax in recyclable cardboard boxes rather than using plastic wrap. Good idea- not only is the cardboard recyclable, it gives me a place to store my wax without it getting sand or grime in it. Score.

After I’m done with the wax, though, I’ve been hanging onto the boxes for projects I just know are waiting. And waiting. Finally, here’s one that actually came out neat-o.

For this bracelet project, I used one of the Mr. Zog’s Sex Wax boxes. The paper is thick, like a light cardboard, but thin enough to cut with a household paper punch. I also thought the natural brown and red colors on the box would look pretty cool by the end.

I opened up the box by tearing the glued seam on the side. 
From there, it’s just punching dots with a standard hole punch. Then using a thicker, sharp  point needle, I poked holes in the center of each cardboard dot, and strung them onto a length of thread.

 

I took this strand out to the garage for a quick blast of spray sealant. It’s not necessary, but I wanted to make the cardboard beads last a bit longer. 

To make my bracelet, I used some pearly grey 8/0 seed beads with some 11/0 silver tone seed beads. I settled on a pattern of 5 cardboard disc beads, 1 silver tone 11/0 bead, 1 8/0 seed bead, and another 1 silver tone 11/0 bead. I repeated this pattern until I ran out of the cardboard discs.


From 3/4 of a Sex Wax box (I kept the front of the box for something else), I was able to make two 7″ bracelets with this pattern. This is not a bracelet to wear in the water on a regular basis, but I think it will hold up enough as a fun Summer bracelet for an evening out.

I’m definitely keeping one, and I’ll put the other in my Random Shop o’ Crafts if somebody just wants to skip the DIY part and likes this version. Hey, I don’t judge- I’ve got other crap to do too, believe it or not.