pliers – A Smith of All Trades

Gunmetal and mint necklace

April 2, 2013April 2, 2013 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.

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!

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.

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.

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

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!

Craft Projects, Jewelry, Quick and Easy Crafts

DIY Button Ring

February 5, 2013 Jessica Smith

Today has not been my day. After getting all decked out in Ravens gear and heading to Baltimore for the parade, we instead sat in terrible traffic. Then, when we got into the city, they promptly redirected us right back out onto the highway. No Super Bowl celebration for us. So sooo bummed.

Instead I worked like most everyone else, which is good because I had stuff I needed to do. So, instead of Super Bowl celebration photos, here is a post I had scheduled for Wednesday for your enjoyment 🙂

I showed you how to make a few different types of button earrings in my last few posts, so today I’ll share how to make a button ring. It’s a little trickier than the earrings. All you need is a button, some hard wire, some pliers, and something to bend your wire around so it stays round — I have a ring sizer I use specifically for making rings.

Thread your wire into your button holes.

On the under side of the button, bend the wire in opposite directions. Then, send one of the wires back up and down through the holes again. Twist the wires around one another so the button will not fall off the wire if you let go.

Then, wrap your wire around something that will hold the round shape. I chose to have a thicker band, so I wrapped the wire around my ring sizer four times.

Next, starting with one side and at the base of the button, start wrapping the leftover wire tightly around the ring band.

Do the same to the other side. Stop when you get all of the way around, or when both sides are even. If you wrap the wire around the entire band, your ring will be a lot smaller than you originally sized it to be, so keep that in mind.

Cut the excess wire off and fold the edges down against the band. With that, your ring is finished!

Pretty darn cute, right?

Christmas, Craft Projects, Holiday

Ribbon Ornaments

December 19, 2012December 19, 2012 Jessica Smith

I’ve been really into making ornaments for our tree lately, and here is one inspired by le pinterest.

I saw an ornament on pinterest that was a Christmas tree made out of ribbon. I ran out of green ribbon after making labels for my applesauce, so my first attempt to make the tree failed miserably because the ribbon was too short. So instead, I made a flouncy ornament out of white ribbon that is pretty just the same.

To start your ornament, find a charm or a bead that you can hand from the end and secure it to a thin piece of wire. You don’t want a wire that is too thick or it will be touch to get it to pass through the ribbon.

Once you have your bottom charm secured, fold your ribbon into a point and pierce it with the wire. Immediately place a bead onto the wire to hold the ribbon down.

Then, in alternating lengths, fold the ribbon and pierce through the middle of the fold. Do this a couple of times, and then add a bead.

Continue until you have a shape you are fond of. If you use green ribbon, you might want to start big on the bottom and get small as you work your way up.

I started with smaller folds, then allowed my folds to get larger in the middle, then small at the top again. I really like the shape it created.

When you are finished with your ornament, fold the ribbon again (so it wont fray) into a point and piece it through the wire on last time. Then make a loop with the wire and wrap it around the base of the loop to tie the whole thing off.

Thread a ribbon or string through your looped wire, and your ornament is ready for the tree.

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