If you know me at all, I can’t just leave something alone the way I bought it.  I like to jazz everything up a bit.  I have been seeing all of these camera straps on Etsy and I figured I could do that with my beginning sewing skills.  It was super fun and here’s how I did it!

First choose your fabric…I know I’m 26 and am using Hello Kitty.  My mom said that was very juvenile of me…haha…I would have to agree!
First take a look at your strap.  This is not going to replace your current strap.  That’s too advanced for me…haha.  This is going to slip over the current strap.  I measured mine and saw that it was about 23 inches or so long and a couple of inches wide.
Just measure until the leather piece.  That’s where you will want it to stop.
More measuring…my favorite thing 🙁  Yours might be different than mine but I bet its pretty close to the same for a DSLR
If you don’t have a mat like this, I higly recommend picking one up!  They make people like me who hate to measure much happier.
Let’s take a Cole break!  He is so happy watching mommy sew…for now…

 

I measured and cut it at 8 1/2 inches wide because you are going to be folding it several times.

 

My little helper…
I cut the length to 26 inches to allow some room for the sewing.
Uhoh!  Fun is over!  This is where I take a break and then come back in the bedroom and can’t even remember what we are making here.
Oh yeah…a camera strap…Take the piece to the ironing board and fold it in half hot dog style…haha teacher talk.  Iron a crease down the middle.
This is what it should look like.
Now fold each side into that center crease.
Fold them together to make the final fold.  The fabric should now be just a tiny bit bigger than your camera strap.  I would slip it on the camera strap just to check before you start sewing.
After ironing and folding.  Now we are ready for the sewing machine.
I’m sure there is a fancier way to do this and I would love to know but I just folded each end 1 inch so that there would be clean edges on the end.
This was me checking to make sure it was going to work and YEAH it does.
My new sewing machine from mom and dad.  It makes sewing way more fun and way less frustrating.  If you are new to sewing, this is the machine for you.  (It threads itself!)
First, hem the edges in while the fabric is unfolded.  Make sure it is unfolded or it won’t slip on the strap and that might be sad.
Just a little tip:  Keep a camera near by when sewing or a chalkboard or paper to write down your settings on the machine if you have to turn it off mid project.  Mine resets everytime and that has caused me some problems in the past.
This is one of the ends after I hemmed it.  I went across twice but you don’t have to.
Now fold it back up and start sewing.  I used a 1/4 inch so that it would be too small when I tried to put it on the camera.
The finished project!
My finished camera strap cover.  I think it turned out super cute and makes my camera super fun!   (Dane loves it..haha)   It literally took me more time to get the strap back on the camera than it did to make the strap cover.