Pastel Chandelier Earrings: The Mystery Revealed!

Today I'm about to reveal The Mystery Thing!  In my last post, I showed off some cute and colorful chandelier earrings, made with a secret ingredient.

So many excellent guesses!  The consensus was wire insulation, with birthday candles running a pretty close second.  Also straws.

Nope, nope and nope!  Here's the reveal...

Ready?

Tada.

Q-tips.  Plastic.  Dollar store.  Many colors.  Whee!

I repeat: whee!!!!

The DIY is super-duper easy.  Just snip 'em into little segments:

String them onto headpins or eyepins, along with some complementary beads and spacers.

Add chandelier findings and/or earwires and you're done!

I hope everybody goes scavenging for colored Q-tips!  Even if you don't make jewelry, wouldn't they be cute in a little glass container in your bathroom?  The colors - so yummy!

Thanks for playing, my fabulous crafty readers!

 

Guess the Mystery Thing! Pastel chandeliers.

Huzzah!  Once again it's time for our popular giveaway game, "Guess the Mystery Thing and Win Because Everybody Knows Someone Who Loves Chandelier Earrings and It's Getting Close to Christmas and Hanukkah and Kwanzaa and If You are Clever Enough to Guess the Mystery Thing That's One Gift All Taken Care of and By the Way There is Always a Random Winner so Even if You Don't Have a Clue You Should Guess Anyway!"

Guess the Mystery Thing for short.

Check out these fun pastel chandeliers:

What are those long skinny beads?

As you can see, they come in several colors and lengths.  This is kind of an easy one, so no clue this time

The first person to guess correctly WINS her choice!  Then I'll pick a winner for MOST CREATIVE GUESS, so make me laugh and you could win!  And as always, a RANDOM WINNER will score one, too.

The rules:

1. Open to anyone, anywhere.

2. To enter, just leave your guess as a comment below.  Important: if I can get to your e-mail in one click from an online profile, great!  But if not, you must include your e-mail address.  Don't forget!

3. If I manage to stump everyone, you will each owe me: a Mint Milano cookie OR one pet-related item from the Dollar Store, which you will purchase and donate to your local underfunded pet rescue organization!

Okay, shoppers!  Ready...set...

Guess the Mystery Thing!

UPDATE: THANKS, EVERYBODY!  THIS CHALLENGE IS NOW CLOSED.

Modern Flower Child necklace.

Yesterday I had a few moments free, so I thought I'd learn to crochet.  Wow, golly, it was so much easier than I expected!  Here's what I whipped up:

Hee hee.  I totally lie!  For the record, I cannot crochet.  I might learn someday.  But in the meantime, I had an idea for a crocheted necklace.  What to do?

Well!  I commissioned my bloggy friend Neccie - a modern flower child if there ever was one - to whip me up some cute little objets.  She has opened an Etsy shop featuring her inexpensive, handmade pretties, including those adorable upcycled pull tab flowers.

So here's how I turned Neccie's flowers into a long, free-spirited, hippy-dippy, peace-loving Flower Child necklace.  In addition to the crocheted pieces, I used jump rings, pull tabs, and some little silver fleurs.

It was a very simple assembly.  All I had to do was open and close the jump rings to connect all the components...

Used two more jump rings to add a piece of chain for length...

Voila - my modern Flower Child necklace.

If you crochet and want to create your own upcycled pull tab flowers, click here for a cool tutorial.

By the way, she also made me some of these sweet li'l dragonflies:

I added two pull tabs and a few jump rings, and came up with a fun articulated pendant.

I have to admit, I kind of adore it.  What do you think?

Okay, kids - that's today's idea.  Thanks for visiting, yo.

And Neccie, thanks so much for the pretties!  Hope you don't mind being called a flower child - I mean it in the best way.

Peace.  Out.

Dollar store jelly pendants.

Hi, you guys!  Look what I have been making:

They are a companion piece to those bangles I did a while back, the ones made from dollar store jelly headbands:

If you recall, I snipped away the ends, and only used the centers of the headbands to make the cuffs.

So let's make this pendant from the leftover bits.  Start with a leftover jelly end, a headpin, and two little spacer beads.  (If you don't have spacers, round beads work, too.)

Okay, first...

Wait, wait, hold on, freeze!  We interrupt this craft for an important announcement.  In case you are not a jewelry-making type, and are about to click away because you don't have beads or jewelry supplies handy, please don't go!  Because I have not forgotten you, and there is a charming, easy two-buttons-and-some-string version coming up.  So stay!

Okay, first.  Find a sharp poky thing, and poke a hole in the jelly end, roughly in the center:

Fold the top over and make a bead-and-headpin sandwich, like so:

Make a teeeeeny loop on the back.

Snip off the extra with a wire snipper.

You can try to bend it downward a little if you want, to keep it low profile, but if the loop is tiny, you really won't notice it's there.

And now you're done!  Hang on a chain or neckwire, maybe add a cute dangly thing to the bottom, and hey, presto - that's your finished pendant!

Nifty, huh?  That one is the basic look, but variations are easy.  Here are couple more ideas...

Another fun variation: double your jellies!

Mm...two kinds of jelly...

I think I'm getting hungry.

Now, as promised, here is the two-buttons-and-some-string method.  Take two buttons and...yeah, you're way ahead of me, aren't you?

Actually, I used 3 buttons because I was being fancy and decided to layer 2 in front.  All you need to do is make the exact same kind of sandwich, using your buttons and string.  Poke the hole as before, then just thread your string through all the layers.  Here's the front:

And after you tie it off, the back will look like this.

Finished!  And cute!  And no fancy tools or findings.  So there.

Okay, that's today's dollar store do-over.  Thanks for visiting today, hope you liked this idea! 

I love using leftovers from other projects, I always feel so virtuous and thrifty.

Mm...leftovers...

I need to start thinking about a turkey.

Totally tubular.

So remember when I made a bangle bracelet out of a vacuum hose from my 1986 Isuzu Trooper?

Shall we have the super easy tutorial?  Woot!

Start with a rubber hose, some wire, and some random fibers, trims and ribbons.  I used rebar wire, but any hefty craft or hardware store wire is fine.

Thread the wire through your tube.  Make a loop on one end, then wrap the other end around it to close up your bangle.  It will be teardrop-shaped at this point.

Adjust the teardrop-shape to make it rounder.  That's the base of the bangle.  Then begin tying on fibers, ribbons and trims...

Layer on a bunch of pretty stuff, to make a freeform tassel.

If you like the look at this stage, you can stop there.  So easy, so cute!

Or you can embellish.  The cool thing about using a rubber tube is how embellishable it is.  By the way, embellishable is not a word.  At all.


I made a simple embellishment with some recycled denim and the plastic center part of a fake fleur.  Here are the bits and pieces:

I poked holes in each layer.  Then threaded a ribbon through all the layers, and around the bangle.  When cinched tight, the tube compresses a bit, just enough to hold your embellishment in place.  Then add a few more bits of trim and ribbon into the center, to fancy up your flower...

...and that's it!

Of course, you may not have access to an automotive vacuum hose...but here's a whole other, fun idea using clear plastic tubing.

Start with a length of tubing and a piece of wire.  Make a loop on one end of the wire.

Gather some fun ribbons and fibers.  Use another piece of wire with a hook on it to pull them through the tube, like this:

So now you have your fibers showcased inside the tube.

Poke your wire-with-a-loop-on-one-end in underneath the fibers:

Thread it all the way through, and close up the bangle by wrapping the wire tail around the loop you already made.

And ta-da, that's a cute fiber-and-ribbon bangle!

Embellish with a flower if you wish, tying on several layers and cinching them tight as before:

How pretty is that?

Here's another version.  Instead of a closed loop, bend a hook on the free end of the wire, so you can open and close the bangle:

I added some chain and silver beads to that one.  I like it, it's kinda punk rockin'.

And one last idea - this is the easiest version of all.  Thread the fiber of your choice through the tube.  Here I used 2 knotted silk bracelets (found in a Chinatown gift shop):

Then I simply tied the ends together.  It's going to remain teardrop-shaped, because there's no wire inside with which to reshape the tube - but it's still pretty dang cute:

You could make a bunch of these in an absolute flash, great for party favors, stocking stuffers, etc.

Whew, that was a bit of a whirlwind, my house is now awash in bits of ribbon.  While I clean up, I suggest you take a crafting break.  Make something totally tubular and be fabulously rad.

Tip: I do not advocate removing a vacuum hose from your working vehicle, or the vehicle of anyone you love.  Doing so will result in your being unable to go to the craft store for ribbons.  Perhaps you have a crabby neighbor whose car is parked on the street nearby?  That's definitely the way to go.