I saw this great necklace on Pinterest and after a few clicks saw that it wasn't a DIY as I thought it was. So when I pinned it, I captioned it "not a DIY, but I'd like to make it one". So HERE it is!!!!!!! I had never made jewelry before, so if you haven't either you can do this! I promise you. The only thing I had to practice was making loops with the round nose pliers. I also didn't own a lot of the materials but they're inexpensive at craft stores.
Materials can easily be purchased at Michael's or any jewelry supply shop.
First thing, the 1 eye pin you have is to hold all of the strands of beads so start with one white bead and I put a small binder clip at the end just to hold it all together. I have a kitten, Buzz, and he for some reason kept wanting to play with the beads.
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On the first head pin you will put 6 red beads, 2 turquoise beads and 4 pink beads. This will be repeated on all 11 head pins.
You will need to cut each head pin to size and make a loop so it can hang on the eye pin. To do this, use your wire cutters and cut about 1cm above the beads. You'll notice that the round nose pliers are tapered, on one end they are thicker and then become thinner on the opposite end. Depending on the size loop you want to make will determine the area of the pliers you use. For this project you will definitely use the thinner end. With the round nose pliers at the top of the head pin, begin turning the pliers around forming a loop. This will take a little practice but is not difficult. I suggest practice making loops with the round nose pliers if you never have, on another head pin.
Your first strand is done and can be places on your eye pin followed by a white bead and placed aside.
Continue making each strand. The only thing that changes from strand to strand is the number of white beads. And you'll notice it will not follow the diagram perfectly. This is because beads range in sizes, some of them are longer than others and some are shorter than others. To compensate for this you will need to hold your strand to the completed strands before cutting it. You need to make sure that it is longer than the previous strands. On the picture below, (on the right) you will see that before cutting that head pin I checked to see if it's long enough before cutting.
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| 2 strands are complete, 9 more to go. |
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| Check length of strand before cutting. |
Continue making the rest of your strands. The necklace is symmetrical so strand 1 is identical to strand 11 and so on. You want to also make sure that the identical strands match in length.
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| Cut you chain to length. This really is personal, if you prefer longer or shorter. I cut mine to 22 inches. |
Next you need to close the other end of your eye pin. You will do this like the other head pins with the round nose pliers. Give yourself a little more than 1 cm of wire to make the loop and you want to make the loop in the same direction as the other pre-made loop, I put both of mine facing down.
Before closing your loop put one end of your cut chain and then close it.
On the other pre-made loop, open the loop slightly and place the other end of the chain.
Cut your chain at the middle where the clasp will go.
At the end of your chain you can add small jump rings to make the length of your necklace adjustable, or if you don't need it to be, you can just add one jump ring. On the other end place one jump ring and the lobster.
And you're done!!!!!!!
Wear your necklace and surprise people when you say you made it!
If you have any questions of if I didn't make something clear enough please let me know.
DIT&O
-Karissa
