Are you ready to see the coolest project ever? I hope so, because I’m about to blow your mind.
My mother in law is awesome and loves to give me things she thinks I can craft into something awesome. Sometimes, I think she’s crazy. For example, she gave me this hot mess of chandelier crystals that were all tangled together and just a hot, hot mess. What the heck was I supposed to do with all of these crystals that I’d surely have to spend hours untangling?
Well, I’m me and I save pretty much anything that people suggest I craft into something — especially if it is sparkly — so I put the heap of chandelier remnants in a plastic bag in my craft room. When we moved, the crystals were upgraded to a glass bowl on a shelf, and that’s where they’ve been since we moved.
I was finally inspired to create something out of the crystals, so I pulled the bowl off the shelf and got to destroying chain after chain of chandelier. The crystals are really old and were really dirty, so I scrubbed the recently freed crystals with some soap and got to creating.
My plan? To make a bib necklace for my coworker’s birthday! To start, I took a piece of cardboard and cut out half of the shape I wanted for my bib necklace. I placed it on a piece of black felt and then folded the felt in half and cut along the edge. Perfect.
Next, I tested hot gluing my crystals onto a scrap piece of felt. Good news: hot glue + crystals + felt = awesome. So, I started placing the crystals where I thought I’d like them to go. When I had them in a good arrangement, I started gluing them into place. I was extra careful to not let any hot glue get on the surrounding felt because it would be impossible to get it off.
With all of my crystals glued to the felt, I needed something extra for the necklace. I didn’t want to make it too heavy, and with almost 15 glass objects already on it I opted for a really light, silver bead cap. I very carefully glued these into place as well. Once I was finished with my necklace (yes, I’m skipping ahead) I decided it needed a little extra something, so I went and added some costume pearls to the bib as well. That’s what you’ll see on the final photo.
After I had everything glued into place, I took a bead reamer and pierced a small hole through the felt. It just so happened that my flower-like crystals had holes in them, which was the perfect place to thread ribbon through that couldn’t possibly tear through the felt over time! Coincidence? Pshhh, please ;p
The final step was to thread the ribbon through the hole, which I did by poking one end of the ribbon onto the bead reamer and re-poking the reamer through the hole. It worked rather well! I love when simple solutions are, well, simple! I tied knots in the ribbon at the edge of the felt, then trimmed the ribbon down to size.
What do you think? I love it and I know my coworker is going to die when she sees it.
Isn’t it amazing what you can create from something you originally thought was a hot mess? I’ll add a photo of my coworker wearing it later on, but her birthday isn’t until mid-November.
Until then, here’s me sporting the sweet bib (I sound like a baby…). You can tell my the look on my face that I really love to take photos of myself to put on the blog — but hey, sometimes you need a model…. and my hubby sure wasn’t gonna try it on!
And kuddos, Robin! You were totally right — the chandelier pieces were totally craft worthy 🙂
Update: Mill loved it!
Wouldn’t it be so pretty to have a tree full of these? I think so!
A Smith of All Trades 
