Tag: necklace

Christmas, Craft Projects, DIY GIFT GUIDE, Gift Idea, Holiday, Jewelry, Quick and Easy Crafts, Wine Crafts

DIY GIFT GUIDE: Wine Cork Necklace

Jessica Smith

Wine Cork Cover

Day 5! This project is so versatile, depending on the corks you save. From a dark brown cork to a stark black cork to a lighter neutral cork, this necklace can turn out so many different ways.

I know I do a lot of wine cork projects, but I really love this one.

Supplies: 

  • Cork
  • Drill
  • Wire
  • Beads
  • Chain

Steps:

  1. Drill a hole straight through your cork, top down.
  2. Bend the wire in half and place a single bead on one strand. This acts as a stopper so the remaining beads don’t fall off.
  3. Place other beads onto both wires, feeding both wires through the same end of the bead.
  4. Bend the top of the wire and insert the bent wires through the cork. By bending a small part at the top in half, this allows the wires to go more smoothly through the cork.
  5. Once the wires are through, place beads on the other end.
  6. Twist both wires into a loop, then secure the wires by twisting them around the base of the loop.
  7. Thread chain through the loop and secure both ends with a jump ring. If you’d prefer a shorter chain, attach a clasp to each end instead.

Wine Cork Necklace

I like this black necklace because you don’t realize what it is immediately.

My favorite is a necklace I made out of a cork from one of my favorite wines. It has an armored knight riding a horse and it is SO COOL.

Cork Necklace

Really, I like them all.

What do you think? Would you wear it? I brought them to my craft fair thinking people would eat them up, but no one bought any. Who knows. I apparently haven’t a clue about my market haha.

Jewelry

Turquoise necklace and craft night

Jessica Smith

{A Smith of All Trades} Turquoise Necklace

It had been four months since our last craft night, but last weekend my girlfriends and I finally got together again for some good food, yummy wine, fun crafting and much-needed girl time. We decided to keep it low-key and make jewelry. Since I have more beads than any one human being could possibly ever need or use, I happily hosted.

We made necklaces inspired by a Pinterest find; and although they took a while, they turned out great.

To make your own necklace you’ll need ribbon, two oversized jump rings, beads and eye pins. Simply string an individual bead onto an eye pin, then close the pin at the open end. Loop each new eye pin into the previous one, creating a chain as you go.

Once your chain is long enough, attach each end to an oversized jump rings. Do not connect your jump rings to one another.

If you want your necklace to have multiple chains, which I did, create and attach them to the existing jump rings as before. It helps to make each subsequent chain longer than the first so they hang nicely.

As a last step, add your ribbon. Loop both ends through the jump ring and back through itself on the other side (does that make any sense?).

Voila!

{A Smith of All Trades} Turquoise Necklace

So pretty 🙂

In other news, if you can call it news, I am almost finished reading my Harry Potter books. I flew through the sixth book and am about 200 pages shy of the end of the seventh. They are seriously my favorite books ever and I am already planning on when I should reread the entire series again. The point is, as soon as I’m done reading this book, I’m free! I’ll actually stop being a book worm and do something crafty! Woo!

What do I have in the works?

  • Shutters for the house — purchased, but not installed
  • New lattice enclosure for our garbage cans because ours is hideous and falling apart
  • Ripping up the rocks along our driveway so I can lay weed barrier and make it look less atrocious (Thankfully, my dad already started on this for us.)
  • Maybe doing a weed treatment to our yard because it’s abhorrent… who knows about this though
  • I still want to make an ottoman for our family room, but I need pallets again
Craft Projects, Jewelry, Quick and Easy Crafts

Gunmetal and mint necklace

Jessica Smith

How was everyone’s Easter? My weekend was filled with three different dinners, a birthday brunch and simply way too much delicious food. Basically, it was awesome. My older sister came into town, and it was the first Easter and birthday we’ve celebrated with her in a decade (or so it seems). My mom, little sister and I took her to brunch in Baltimore at Cafe Hon to celebrate her birthday. It was a ton of fun.

{A Smith of All Trades} Easter Pic

Sunday was dinner at my dad’s house with my stepmom’s family and her brother’s partner’s family. I’ll give you a second to figure out that relationship 🙂 We only get to see them at Easter, which makes the holiday even more enjoyable.

My Easter craft was pretty simple, and I’m only just sharing it now because the weekend was SO busy and yesterday I had a killer headache. I even missed trivia, so you know it was crummy.

Anywho… I needed a new necklace for Easter. Yes, needed.

I had this old chain that I’d been hanging onto. I liked its chunkiness, but the length was awkward. You know what I mean…. long enough to occasionally disappear  under your shirt and just the right length to get stuck in cleavage… basically, the worst length for a necklace!

{A Smith of All Trades} Gunmental and Mint Necklace1

I cut the necklace in half using really strong pliers, then added a new section to the necklace of bright mint beads.

The beads were a gift from my bestie, and were a totally sweet thrift store find. To add them to the chain, I used beading wire and a crimp bead. I looped one end of wire around the end of the chain, then flattened and crimped the crimp bead so no beads would fall off.

{A Smith of All Trades} Gunmental and Mint Necklace2

Then, I strung the beads with gunmetal spacers in between, closing the wire at the other end with a crimp bead.

In about four minutes, my boring, awkward-lengthed necklace was transformed into the perfect necklace. My sister really liked the whole thing hanging asymmetrically, too.

{A Smith of All Trades} Gunmental and Mint Necklace

AND, it is also the perfect length to wrap around my wrist to become a chunky bracelet. #Winning.

{A Smith of All Trades} Gunmental and Mint Necklace3

I hope you all had a great Easter. The weather is finally getting warmer in Maryland, so hopefully I can start to tackle a few larger projects I’ve been wanting to do.

Oh, and our doors are supposedly in! Joyyyyyyyy 🙂 I’ll make sure to show you when they are all installed and beautiful!