The braided hair tie uses three half inch wide strips. You can do them in any color combination you like. I liked the look of one strand of each color.

Stretch your strips as described for the 1" hair ties. Then take a pair of scissors and snip each tie once to make three strands total.

You can use a rubber band to hold the top strands together temporarily while you are braiding them. Or you can use one of the strands to tie a knot that holds all of the strands together.To do that, take the three strands and place them next to each other. Take the right most strand (now called the knotting strand)and put it under the two other strands, leaving a small portion at the top. Take the top of the knotting strand and bring it over the two other strands, while keeping the bottom of the knotting strand under the two other strands. Twist up the bottom of the knotting strand so that it is pointing up and on top of the shorter piece of the knotting strand. Then take the short piece and feed it through the hole that was created between the two other strands. Take your finger under the knot to gently wiggle and push the knot up to the top. Then, while holding the knot, pull down on the string that made the knot to tighten it. If this is unclear look at the pictures above for more guidance.

Now for the braiding! Have someone hold the end of the strands or tape it to a desk so you can braid them together tightly and evenly. Braid until you reach the end of the strands.

To secure the end of the braid take the left most strand and wrap it around the back of the braid. Then bring it around the front and down through the hole it's made. Make sure that it goes down not up so that it sits right next to the other two strands. If this part is unclear, there are pictures above as well to guide you.

Sometimes one strand will be slightly longer, so take your scissors and trim the ends to the same length.

To attach the two sides together, I used a very small rubber band (like for rubber band looms or small hair braids) and wrapped it around on the side of the knot closest to the braid. This is so the knot will hold the rubber band on when you stretch it open to use it as a hair tie. The knot keeps it from springing off.