DIY Tassel Necklace

Yesterday I shared a little tassel necklace I had made and today I'm here to share with you how you can make one of you own!

Making a tassel is really simple.  Here are the supplies you need:

- Thread or embroidery floss (the blue thread I used here is hand dyed rayon ribbon, you can find it here).

- Jump ring - you can find these in any craft store or use one from an old necklace

- Round Nose Pliers (for opening and closing jump ring)

(*If you don't feel comfortable using a jump ring the simple using a piece of your thread make a knotted loop that you can gather around the middle of your thread.)

- A chain to attach the tassel to

After you have made your tassel you just need to slide it on a chain, either one you make or use an old necklace!  If you don't have anything on hand that would work, check out your local thrift and second hand stores for jewelry.  I have found some great long chains that way.

Below is the tassel I made for yesterday's post using embroidery thread.  After making the tassel I made a beaded strand attached to some chain.  You could simply string some beads on some thread and tie the ends and attach a tassel if you wanted something similar.  Using the jump ring makes it easy to remove and attach easily to whatever necklace you want.

This can be as simple or as intricate as you would want it to be and both are pretty when paired with your outfit.

There are so many possibilities and different designs you could make!  You could also use your tassels for bracelets, keychains, earrings or even make them from yarn and do some pretty graduation party decorations!  I love the versatility of these!  Have some fun and make something today!

PS - I have some other easy diy jewelry projects to check out-

fabric rosette necklace

silhouette necklace

fabric pendants

Linking Up Here:

DIY Silhouette Necklace

I'm so excited to be participating in Kelly's Mother's Day Handmade {love} Series!  I'm the third project out of ten coming your way!  Yesterday Jamie at Roubinek Reality shared a really sweet DIY Ruffled Kitchen Towel.  She has awesome and easy to follow instructions - go check her project out!!

So today I'm going to share a fun and easy Mother's day gift idea - a sweet little silhouette necklace.  I'm all about a silhouette - I love the vintage charm.  I wanted to come up with something that anyone could do and uses easy to find materials.  This really is easy, I promise!  Ok, let's get started!

Supplies I used:

- Balsa Wood Shapes

- Craft Paint

- Pencil

-Silhouette Stencil

- Sharpie Markers

- Small Nail (for making a hole to hang)

- Jump Rings

-Jewelry Chain

Jewelry Clasps

-Diamond Glaze or some other finish

The first thing you need to do is paint your Balsa wood shapes with craft paint - simple.  Balsa wood is a soft wood and its found in most craft stores.  I found the pre-cut shapes at Michaels.  I decided to use two circles and to add a little heart for an accent.  

  

After your paint is dry its time to trace your silhouette onto your pendant.  I simply found a profile of my son on my computer and shrank the size down to fit and printed it out.  Then, I cut out the silhouette to make a template and traced around the template with a pencil onto my pendant.  Next, I simply used a black sharpie to trace around the pencil.  *Here's a tip - a fine tip sharpie will work even better for outlining your silhouette.  After you have your outline use the regular tip sharpie for filling in.  I ended up filling in a couple of coats to get it dark and as even as possible.

Now you need to make your hole so you can use this as a pendant for your necklace.  You can either drill a hole or use a small nail and lightly tap it into the wood.  Its super soft wood so it doesn't take much to make a hole.  

After that, the next part is sealing and finishing it all off.  I decided to use diamond glaze- since I had it on hand and I like the glossy, hard finish it gives...Oh, also it dries super fast.  You could totally use a glossy modge podge or even a clear coat spray paint sealer - just use what you have.  

After your finish coat is all dry the last part is just assembling your necklace together.  I used a couple of jumprings to attach my pendants onto my chain.  Round nose pliers work great for opening and closing the jumprings.  Don't let this part intimidate you if you have never made jewelry - its so easy!  Jumprings can also be found at any craft store - even at Walmart.

And finally, you have a cute little silhouette necklace, ready for gift giving.  Mine came together pretty quickly.  I had a few minutes here and there to paint, cut, trace, gloss, etc.  Don't let handmade projects seem time consuming - usually I'm doing one little step at a time throughout the day when I work on a project like this instead of trying to carve out a chunk of time.  It works for me!

Thanks so much for joining me today!!  Tomorrow Jaime at Raising Up Rubies, will be sharing another great handmade mother's day gift idea so make sure to check it out, I can't wait!!  

Have a great day!

DIY Fabric Pendants

This weekend we had some yucky weather so we were indoors more than usual - which equaled me needing a new craft to try, but not able to get out to purchase any new craft items (seriously though, I should have plenty of craft items by now).  So I of course went to the best crafting source out there - pinterest, and found an easy and fun project to try.  So lets break out our scrap fabric and make something.

Oh but first, let me share with you our major winter storm of 2013.  We were hoping for snow but received ice instead - Silas had no idea the difference since he's never seen either.  This was a huge deal around these parts.  I know some of my blogging buddies are used to much more wintry weather than this but to us- this was like total lockdown.  Not everyone loves snow, but I do- so this was a little disappointment but we still made it fun nonetheless.   

Silas even made "snowballs" aka ice balls haha.  He had such a blast running around outside through the icy grass, I wonder what he would do in a real snow event.

Ok, back to our crafty project - the fabric pendants.  So like I mentioned earlier, I first found these on pinterest via darling dexter.  After falling in love with them I immediately started to think of how to make something similar.  I wanted to use things I already had and for it to be easy - So here's my tutorial:

Supplies Needed:

- scrap fabric

- cardboard or small balsa wood shapes

- two pendant shaped stencils: one big and one small (I just freehanded mine)

- pencil

-scissors

-glue gun

-ribbon

- needle & thread

Alright, so the first thing you need to do is trace out the shapes you will need. 

*Take your smaller pendant shape stencil and trace on your scrap piece of cardboard - this will be used inside of your pendant.  

*Next, take your larger pendant shaped stencil and trace two shapes on your fabric.  I just flipped over my fabric and used a pencil. 

*Cut out your shapes.

*You also need to cut a small piece of ribbon for the loop for your pendant.

--side note - I found some small balsa wood shapes I just had laying around so I used them as well (they are the circle and rectangle).  But you don't need those to do this project.

Now its time for hot glue!  

*Glue your ribbon ends together to form a loop. 

*Next, lay one of your cut fabric pieces down (pattern side facing down) and layer in the ribbon loop on the top and use a tiny bit of glue to keep it down.  

*Then, use a tiny bit of glue to secure your smaller cardboard piece, followed by a tiny bit of glue to hold together the last fabric piece. 

Now you are ready for a little needle and thread.  Don't worry, this is easy and it doesn't have to be perfect.  I just quickly stitched around my cardboard piece that's inside my fabric pendant.  This really makes it much sturdier and finishes it off nicely.

Now, from here you can totally use a chain you already have to slip it on and off to wear it.  I decided to make a few necklace chains with some supplies I had.  You just need some craft chain, clasps and jump rings (all found at any craft store - even walmart) .  I use wire cutters (to cut my chain), flat nose and round nose pliers to open my jump rings and secure the clasp - its pretty simple.

I love these sweet little fabric pendants and all three took me less than an hour to make - more like 45 minutes.  I love that I used supplies I already owned so there was no money spent to make these - my kind of craft.  I think the possibilities are endless with this, so many variations running through my head!

So any of you guys face the winter storm this weekend?  Do you have any crafty things you are working on?  Share with me!

Having a wonderful week!

Linking Up Here:

Make-It Link Party

DIY Rosette Necklace

Its official, we have entered the busy season.  CPA's have tax season, Youth Pastors have summer season (graduation, summer camp, mission trips, vba and new year kick offs).  Don't get me wrong, we love it - its not a bad busy, its a fun busy and we love every minute of it and I can't wait to share some of the things that we experience throughout the summer.  But more involved projects have taken a back burner and I've been enjoying some crafty things as of late.  So today starts a crafty project parade of sorts that I will be sharing over the next couple of weeks, yay!  So let's get to it.

One of my favorite craft pastimes is jewelry making.  Most of you know I have a little etsy shop where I sell some of the things I make.  For me, sitting down, being creative and making something new is such a relaxing and mind clearing pastime.  If I'm feeling a little stressed or overwhelmed making jewelry is my go-to project.  It just works for me.  I'm actually surprised I'm just now sharing a jewelry craft with you since I enjoy it so much and frequently spend time doing it.

Most of you have seen these cute and sweet little rosette necklaces on the web, but I still wanted to share my take on it with you.  This is a really easy and simple jewelry project to start with, you need basic supplies and I actually made mine with leftover scraps and materials I already had, so this was a free project for me!  

Ok, so basic jewelry making tools - these three tools will get you through tons of jewelry making hours.  You don't necessarily need all of these for this necklace, it's doable without them, but if you are using chain then it makes it so much easier.

Here's a list of supplies you will need:

- scrap fabric (could also be an old t shirt you could cut up)

- felt (I used a scrap piece - you can find packs of 10 at the $1 store)

- hot glue gun

- scissors

-chain, ribbon, leather (I used chain from a necklace I no longer used)

Optional:

- Round Nose Pliers/Flat-nose pliers (for attaching a clasp if needed)

- Wire Cutters (If you need to cut your chain)

So I'm starting out this tutorial with the assumption that you already know how to make a basic fabric Rosette - I have that much faith in your crafting abilities.  If you don't know how to make a rosette, it's pretty simple, it's basically twisting a strip of fabric and rolling it around, gluing as you go to make a rosette.  If you don't know how - here is a great tutorial!

So once you have made your rosette's - I made five for this necklace - you need to break out the felt and cut out a small circle for each. As you can see from the picture below, these are very precise circles - j/k.  I didn't care what my circles looked like, they just needed to be a little smaller than my rosette.  After you have your felt circles, hot glue them to the back of your fabric flowers.

Next, hot glue three of your rosettes right on a square of felt the way you would like to have them arranged.  I also glued a little between the rosettes to keep them together.

Then you need to bust out your chain.  I had a necklace I never wore anymore and decided to re-use that chain for this project (this is where wire cutters would come in handy since I needed to detach it from the old necklace and cut two equal strands).  If you don't have any available chain, its pretty inexpensive and available at any craft store these days, you can even find it at Walmart.  You could also use a different material instead of chain like ribbon or leather.  Just be creative, use what you have.

If you decide to buy chain, make sure you also purchase a clasp and jump ring to attach the clasp to the chain.  Here's a great tutorial for using jump rings (plus some more great basic jewelry techniques).

So after you have your two equal chain sections (or ribbon, etc), simply hot glue that chain to the back of the rosette and then to the felt - right next to your trio of previous glued-down rosettes.

Simple.  I did add a bit more glue to the back when I flipped it over to glue it down to the felt - just to make sure it was plenty sticky.

After you have glued everything down you are ready for the final step - cutting it out.  This is my least favorite part because you have to get in-between all of those flowers.  This is where a neutral colored felt piece would have been awesome, but like I said I just used scrap felt that I already had laying around. 

Now you are ready to put that cute little necklace on and take a picture of your dirty smugged mirror - this is a step, don't leave it out or else it won't turn out right.

So trying to take a picture of me wearing this necklace was a fail, I had some better ones but they were either crooked, dark or weird.  But, look at this sweet rosette necklace....don't you want to go make one now?

Thanks for joining stopping by today, more crafty things to come!

Linking Up Here: