BLUE PETER: MAKE YOUR OWN TELEPORT BRACELET

To tie-in with the repeats of Series D in 1983, Blue Peter included a feature on how to make your own teleport bracelet on 6 June 1983. To make it even easier for you, we've compiled these instructions based on Janet Ellis' on-screen 'make'.

So if you’d like to be like Avon, Tarrant, Vila, Dayna and Soolin and have your very own Blake’s 7 bracelet follow these simple instructions.

What you’ll need:

Stiff ribbon, long enough to fit around your wrist.
Self-sticking Velcro tabs (or press studs).
Margarine tub (250 grams)
Cottage cheese/yoghurt pot
Scissors
Pencil
Thick card
Paper
Glue
Crinkly plastic (Pink)
Silver paint

Instructions

The wristband is made of stiff ribbon, the sort used for backing belts. You need a piece that’s long enough so that when it’d round your wrist loosely, the ends overlap. To join up the ends, use self-sticking Velcro or press studs.

Use a pattern to create the rather unusual shape on the top of the bracelet. To do this you need some stiff card and an old margarine tub (250 gram size). Draw a circle around the margarine tub. Then draw another circle in the middle, round an old cottage cheese or yoghurt pot. Make sure it’s in the middle before you draw around it to make your pattern.

Once you’ve drawn around it, cut out the inner and the outer edges of the circle. Fold the circle you’re left with in half and then in half again.

To get the shape of the bracelet, square off the top edges of the circle along the curved bit. When you open it out, you will have your pattern.

Use some stiff card (from an old soap powder packet) draw around the pattern that you’ve got twice onto the edge of the thick card and cut them out. If you use the card doubled up and stuck together very firmly, you’ll have a bracelet that’s twice as strong.

These shapes will form the top and bottom of the bracelet.

The space in the middle is filled with paper rolls made from strips of paper, the same length and width as the wristband of your bracelet. Use a ruler to draw the edges so they’re nice and straight.

You need 10 of the paper rolls. To make the roll, use a pencil to roll it up nice and tight. Add a spot of glue on the end when you reach it.

Keeping it tightly rolled, slide the pencil away and you have the first of your rolls. Repeat another nine times. Using the base of the bracelet and working from the outer edge, put plenty of glue onto the bracelet and stick the first roll in position.

The roll that goes alongside it is going to need plenty of glue on the bottom and also along the length where it’s being stuck to the roll next door.

Once you’ve got five paper rolls working along from one edge, start at the other edge, put another five in position, so you’re left with a gap in the middle.

Put the top of the bracelet, with lots of glue, into position on top. Leave it to dry. Now you’re ready to add the central panel with all the controls on it.

Using some more stiff card the same width as the bracelet and about six centimetres long, bend it just slightly at the outer edges, so that it fits over the curved shape of the bracelet and stick it in position.

The control panel is a separate piece of card with an oblong cut away at one side and backed with crinkly plastic you get on cake packet linings or biscuit packets. On the other side are three small holes which might be a bit fiddly to cut out individually so use a hole punch instead. (Or, if you want to cut corners, you could draw one red circle, one green circle and one black circle once the bracelet is painted.)

Stick the control panel into position, and you’re ready to add the wristband on the back. You will need to add a lot of glue onto the rolls of paper and then stick the wristband into positioning with a fastening at one end. Leave to dry.

Now you’re ready to add the final decoration - the studs along the top and the bottom of the bracelet. Use 12 dome-shaped buttons with the shanks cut away at the back (get a grown-up to help you).

Stick 3 of the buttons on each side on the top and 3 on each side on the bottom of the bracelet using strong glue.

Once the buttons are in position paint the bracelet silver. Two coats of silver paint give a nice shiny finish. Wait for the first coat to dry before adding the second coat.