Handmade Holidays & Giveaways! Part 1: Wine Charms

Welcome to the first installment of Handmade Holidays & Giveaways!!!


Last year, I posted a series of holiday tutorials... this year, I'll be posting tutorials, AND featuring a giveaway of that item!

All you have to do to enter, is to comment on the tutorial and you're entered to win. Each tutorial will let you know how long you've got to enter. Want another chance to win? Simply post a link to the giveaway on your blog or on twitter and leave a second comment with a link to it.

If you don't win the giveaway, you'll either be able to create the project yourself, or in many cases, I'll be making extra's and offering them for sale... any questions? Let me know...

Here is my first Handmade Holiday project, Crystal Wine Charms. These make the perfect holiday hostess gift. They are small to store, easy to carry and even if your hostess already has a set, you can bet she'll love additional ones, especially during holiday entertaining.

Plus, they are a great way to start working towards jewelry if you haven't ventured there yet.

Materials:

• 6 Wire Hoops with Eye Loops
• 6 6mm crystals each a different color
• 12 3mm crystals each, 2 of each in the same or complimenting colors as the 6mm crystals
• 6 head pins 
• 12 3mm silver beads
• 12 other beads, I picked simple white crystal tubes
• Wire cutters
• Chain nose pliers
• Round nose pliers
• Tin favor tin (to hold them in.) 

Here is a picture of all the materials go into making a single charm:

Step 1 - Thread the 6mm crystal on the head pin.

Step 2 - Bend the headpin at a 90° angle just above the top of the crystal using your chain nose pliers.

Step 3 - Cut the tail of the headpin so that you've goat a tail that is about 1/3 of an inch.

Step 4 - Grasp the tip of the tail on the headpin with your round nose pliers and roll the pilers back towards the bend.

Step 5 - String the beads onto the hoop.

Step 6 - Grasp the tip of the loop (the non eye end) and bend the end up 90°.

And there you go. Repeat though each of the other colors and you've got a set of wine charms!

So there you go! Comment below to enter to win a set of the wine charms. Or visit my little online craft show and check out these plus 2 other versions I've got left over after my craft show.

You've got 'till Midnight 6 pm eastern time on Friday, November 19th to enter to win the Crystal Wine Charms! 

Wire Wrapped Bead Jewelry: Bracelet

I talked about this yesterday, so I'll get right to the tutorial for this bracelet.

Materials needed:

•  22 Gauge Wire
• 7-10 9mm beads or pearls
• Wire cutters
• Chain nose pliers
• Round nose pliers
• The sharpie pictured above is what I used to make the clasp, you can make or buy. Whatever you like.
• Ruler

I like to start my bracelets by making 1 full bead link, and 1 full "s" link. Then I measure them together to determine how many I will need to create a 7.5"-8" bracelet. My preferred size. 

To create a bead link:
Step 1 - Cut 1 5.5" length of the 22 gauge wire

Step 2 - Line the top of the 2 lengths of wire at the top. (Your about to make an eye pin, so if you know how to do this, just skip on down to step 7)

Step 3 -With the chain nose pliers at about 7/8th of an inch from the top of the wire, bend the top of the wire towards you.

Step 4 - Clamp the wire at the short side of the bend with the round nose pliers.

Step 5 - With your finer, wrap the wire around the top clamp of the round nose pliers and down so that the point is facing the same as the other end of the wire.

Step 6 - Change the position of the pliers so that the loop is now on the bottom clamp of the round nose pliers. Then wrap the shorter tail, around the longer one until you've gone around twice.

Step 7 - Thread your bead onto the eye pin.

Step 8 - Bend the tail of the eye pin at a 90° angle while holding the wire with the chain nose pliers.

Step 8 - Using the round nose pliers create a loop at the top of the bead and wrap the tail as if you are making the eye pin.

Step 9 - Begin wrapping the bead with the tail working your way toward the start of the bead.

Step 10 - Secure the tail of the wire around the top eye loop.

Step 11 - Turn both eyes at the top and bottom to face the same direction.

Create the "s" link.

Step 1 - Hold the tip of wire between the round nose pliers:

Step 2 - Wrap the tail of the wire around the top of the round nose pliers and back towards you to create a loop.

Step 3 - Hold the tail end of the wire right up close to the loop between the round nose pliers.

Step 4 - Using your fingers, wrap the tail of the wire up around the top of the round nose pliers.

Step 5 - Wrap the tail down so that is crosses the other tail of the "s"

Step 6 - Snip any excess wire so that the tip of the tails, just touch the joint of the "s"

To create the bracelet:

Attach one bead link to one "s" link and measure them.

Also, measure the clasp:

This means, I'll need 7 sets of beads and "s" links.

Attach everything together and you've got a bracelet.

I'm rather addicted to these little suckers, as you can tell: