I am excited to announce that I am this week's Crafty Superstar over at Cut Out + Keep! For the next few days I will share here the tutorials I wrote for them. I haven't written a lot of tutorials so I was super excited to take up the challenge. Enjoy!
A while ago, I ordered a collection of vintage links from
the incredible Yvonne at MyELEMENTS. She carried the most amazing stuff! In my imagination, and despite her accurate description,
these were dainty links and I planned to make several strands for an amazing
statement piece.
Low and behold each link was much larger than I thought! Really just one strand was statement enough, which I connected with silver jump rings. To make it a little more interesting, I put a bunch of small jump ring on each connecting jump ring. It’s great – light and fun yet substantial.
Like all of my most favorite pieces, complicated techniques aren’t required, just using things that make you happy. You can make a variation of this necklace with all kinds of “links,” like these:
The large donuts are from MyELEMENTS, the green howlite
beads are from Michaels, the white links are actually scrapbooking materials
found in the Hobby Lobby clearance bin, and the silver links are metal blanks
for stamping, also from Hobby Lobby. Any
of these could make a great statement piece.
I have two examples to show you – one using other awesome links from MyELEMENTS,
the other using drilled river stones from Stone Alone.
The
supply list is simple – a couple large interesting links, some jump rings, some
chain and a clasp. For this necklace I
used 3 large plastic links, 8 large jump rings, and two lengths of chain. The jump rings I made myself from heavy gauge
copper wire from Parawire, and the chain was
from Michaels.
Connect the large links
with the jump rings (I used 2 per connection), attach the chain, and then
attach a clasp. In this case I used a
simple lobster clasp.
For
this necklace I used the beautiful river stones from Stone Alone
and some bright silver aluminum jump rings left over from another project.
Make sure to always open the jumprings side
ways so they keep their shape!
I used silver “leather” cord for
the back of the necklace – using a larks head knot to connect to the chain of
stones, and a simple overhand knot to connect a jump ring with a clasp on one
end, and a jump ring with a clasp on the other.
Congrats on the Cut out + Keep feature!! I think your statement necklace and its variations are really great. Oh, and the necklace you made with the large links is nice too. I would have been baffled by those for sure. But, you made them shine!
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