Make-It Monday: Simple Beaded Earrings Tutorial

Well, as you may have heard about in Saturday's post, I'm not really able to hobble around in the kitchen making food and taking pictures of it. So this was the perfect opportunity to finally do a jewelry tutorial post for you guys--since it can be done sitting down. ;) (You know, leg wrapped up, propped up, with ice on it all the while...)

A regular customer of mine recently requested a simple, silver and cobalt beaded necklace. Here's what I came up with:

And she loved it. :) But she also wanted some very simple clip-on earrings to match, with just one dangling bead. So I wanted to show you guys how to make these simple earrings.

It really is easy, and gets even easier the more you do it--the hardest part was definitely attempting to get good pictures of what I was doing. I tried, y'all!

You'll need:

Notes:

• My pliers are 3-in-1: round-nose, "flat-nose," and a wire cutter farther in. (Can you see those?) So if you just have round-nose pliers, you can use nail clippers to cut the wire instead. (This resource will tell you everything you need to know about pliers.)
• This tutorial works for any kind of earring hooks.
• You can get any of these supplies at any craft store or on Etsy.

How to do it:

1- Thread a headpin through one of the beads and trim it to about 3/8" sticking out of the bead.

2- Do the same with the other headpin and bead, and eye-ball them to make sure they're the same length.

3 -5 - Grasp the end of the headpin with your pliers and bend the wire into a curve away from you--you'll want to do this bending motion while pushing back against the wire toward yourself, if that makes sense, so that you get a prettier c-shaped loop as opposed to an ugly cane-shaped loop.

6 - Slip the headpin loop through the loop in whatever type of earring hooks you're using--you may need to gently re-open the headpin loop a little bit to give it room first.

7 - Once the loop is through the earring back's hole, insert the pliers into the loop like you did when you made the loop and begin to close it.

8- Finish closing the loop by very gently clamping it shut with either flat-nose or round-nose pliers (flat works better for this, but either works).

All done!

You can stack even more beads onto each headpin for a bolder look too. The possibilities are really endless with the colors and combinations you can make. And if you're still trying to figure out what to get Mom for Mother's Day, here's an idea! Make her a couple pairs of earrings! Or you can always browse the earrings section in my Etsy shop. ;)

Don't forget there's still a couple days left to enter my giveaway!

P.S. Linking up with Funday Monday, Time to Sparkle, Do Tell Tuesday, Show Me What Ya Got, Share Your Stuff Tuesday,

Share It Link Party, Wake Up Wednesday, Wildly Original Link Party, Whatever Goes Wednesday, Mother's Day Categorically Crafting Party, All Things Thursday, and Handmade Cafe.

Such a Charming DIY!

Sometimes I have no idea how jewelry ideas come to me. The other night, while attempting to fall asleep, this one just started developing in my brain and I probably ended up getting out of bed and doing something about it, which is a recurring problem of mine. But that's a whole other story. ;)

It's so simple, I'm not sure why it's not just the thing to do. (Or maybe it is and no one's told me??) I know charm bracelets are, of course, common charm bracelets, but I mean this more specific version.

Either way, I was so excited about this and think it's a grand idea for making for yourself or a special gift! (Which I promptly did...)

A movie-themed charm bracelet! We've all probably got a movie or two, or a book, or a TV show that is particularly special to us for any number of reasons. Why not have a bracelet with charms that represent it?

My movie picked, all I had to do was find the fitting charms. That was the hard part. I was very sad to be unable to find a penguin, and waffle, and a baseball bat, as those are some of the most important parts of my movie choice (which, you're probably thinking, what in the world is that movie...? ;)

I did finally go with a lily, Hawaiian flower, video tape, boat, paintbrush, palm tree, and pineapple. I found three of the seven charms from a handy shop on Etsy fittingly called Mad About Charms. If you decide to make a bracelet yourself, there's a good chance she'll have half or more of the ones you're looking for. For any others she doesn't have for you, you can just do a simple search on Etsy for exactly what you want and should have a good bit of luck.

For the chain, I happened to have a short length of chunky gold chain waiting to be used. And almost all the charms came with their own jump rings to attach them to the chain with (for any that were lacking, I do just happen to have jump rings around ... I make jewelry ;). And then I added a clasp. Super easy. The hardest parts were just locating the charms and waiting for them to come in the mail! And decide what order to put them in. (If jump rings scare you, feel free to track me down to put one together for you. :)

I've never been a big charm-bracelet-wearer before so wasn't sure how I would feel about having all these things hanging off my wrist and clanging around--and I find it quite enjoyable. ;)

So any idea what my movie was? I don't condone the whole thing and do admit that it has parts that need edited out. But I found it by accident and was amazed at the depth of personal meaning in such a silly movie. There are some strong parallels, in my opinon, between my shortcomings because of my health problems and the shortcomings of Lucy in 50 First Dates, and I just find it very encouraging and meaningful (and I've heard of at least one other sufferer like me who agrees, so I'd bet there's a lot more of us!) Like I said, not the most wholesome movie, but a very touching, meaningful story.

And now I have a bracelet to remind me of it! Do you have a movie or book you'd like to make one for? It's so much fun, and the sky's the limit with this design!

Budget DIY Jewelry Organizer

In case you haven’t already guessed, I am a jewelry freak. And since I just discovered making jewelry a couple of years ago (you can shop my jewelry here), that leaves a whole lotta years of amassing jewelry. (You know, since now I usually can’t bring myself to buy jewelry unless it’s handmade, preferably by me. ;)

So for a long time, my collection lived in bead boxes and such, but it would always end up all tangled together. And that’s just not very helpful when you’re already running late and have to wear jewelry…

So of course Pinterest had its suggestions on how to organize your jewelry on towel rods with shower hooks, and you mount it in your huge closet, etc. Well, I don’t have a huge closet or the money to buy and mount such awesome hardware. So, I came up with my awesome budget version. :)

Behold, $20 fantabulousness: my necklaces, bracelets, and rings … and some headbands … and belts (I don’t wear earrings) in one place!

For the necklaces and belts:

 Majorly cheap curtain rod (under $5—pretty much the cheapest they had)

C-hooks for a shower curtain (again, these cost about $1 for a dozen)

           

For the bracelets/rings/headbands:

Tie/belt organizer (probably in the vicinity of $12)

           

The rod and the tie organizer are then mounted with 

command poster strips (all from Walmart).

And that’s it! All my jewelry is finally organized clearly and conveniently and can be put on a wall on the back of a door (where I had it where we used to live), or on the wall behind a bedroom door (where I have it where we live now), or wherever you prefer!

The tie organizer was a bit of a splurge that I didn't have to do—you certainly could use a curtain rod in place of it, which would cost even less, or if you don’t have gobs of jewelry like I do, just one curtain rod might be plenty!

Just be creative, and see what you can come up with!

Just Add Ribbon...

I am all about taking unwanted pieces of jewelry and turning them into a completely different piece—that the owner loves! While I’ve done lots of those lately, I recently discovered a little trick, which I found here. This is a whole lot faster than making a brand new piece and requires absolutely no jewelry-making knowledge.

When my sister recently gave me a couple of her extra long necklaces to upcycle however I wanted, I immediately told her what I could do with them—and she wanted them back once she saw what I did. :) My grandmother also "donated" the green pearl-like necklace to me, which my sister also became the owner of once I did this to it.

The originals are totally wearable on their own:

Two long, beaded strands

One long strand of black beads

Same style as the black, except lovely, crinkly green beads

But this little change preserves the original piece and gives you two looks from one piece of jewelry!

All you need is a long necklace, without a clasp on it, and two long lengths of ribbon. I would say at least a yard long each, but once you see how long you want it, you can trim it accordingly—just leave enough length to easily tie the bow.

Double or triple the necklace and slide one ribbon through each end of the necklace. Then tie the ribbon around your neck, letting the now-layered necklace hang as short or long as you want. If that sounds confusing, the pictures should help.

You can tie it short or long.

Just leave the ribbons long enough to work for different lengths.

So simple!

Now that I’ve seen the idea, it seems like a no-brainer! And now that I did these for my sister, I want to do it with some of my own jewelry!

Two looks, thanks to some ribbon. Not bad!

Enjoy trying this out yourself. It can make some of your forgotten pieces new favorites!