Making a Charm Bracelet
Lesson 4 from: How to Turn Junk Drawer Jewelry into Top Drawer AccessoriesBlair Stocker
Making a Charm Bracelet
Lesson 4 from: How to Turn Junk Drawer Jewelry into Top Drawer AccessoriesBlair Stocker
Lesson Info
4. Making a Charm Bracelet
Lessons
Lesson Info
Making a Charm Bracelet
We now have a selection of charms and you're gonna want to cut your chain too I usually do it I think I mentioned the length of your wrist and then I add an inch and a half because I like when I'm wearing a charm bracelet if I am working you can imagine I found like a cat with the bell when I'm working in my studio because I'm just you know, so you wanted tio be able tio travel down your wrist a little bit so that when you're writing it's not dragging on the table or you know, bouncing around so give yourself a little bit of leeway so I usually use about a seven inch and I'm just going to cut I'm just going to guess to me here so finally the change you want and literally just cut into with your pliers and break the uh the loop there for, say, a kid is there a standard size like for a little girl if you're doing it could be six arriving I need be smaller than that, it would just depend and I'd be really careful with the charms for you know, the thing about charm bracelets is they're fun...
to play with and, you know, make sure that the charms air really sturdy on the bracelet so that because they're going to want to play with them and look at them and pull it them because I'm not a kid and I like to play I look at them and pulling them so yeah but I think you have to go pretty small um what's a symbol our charms over here so what I do is I put the the clasps on last and or you could put them on now but we'll put him on last just for this particular one so what I do when I lay out my bracelet I laid the chain out flat I started thinking about where I want my charms I like to mix big charms the side of small charms I don't want half of the bracelet to be super big so we have a couple of large ones so we'll spread that is out if you don't want it that way again there are near rules so you can do this however you I think is appropriate for what you're going to use it for and then this one charms like this are going to dangle a little longer so you just be aware of where you want to put those and let's get our coin you know where that went so put that on there so I'm laying them out on either side of the chain and just kind of spreading them I've got you know two or three links in between each each of the charms so that's kind of how I do it the beauty is is that once you make this if you wanted to add more if you have cool buttons on a shirt that you decide I don't like the shirt but I love these buttons just puts him jump brings on him and just keep adding some people like them really full and they're really pretty that way they're more of a statement that it's really fun so let's put some of these on here we're going to do the same thing we're going to use the same jump brings the same the same little tool that we use to open these up and all of these re sources are in your available for download with the class so you'll know what these are and where to get them I'm gonna put this jump ring on this button because I forgot to do that now if I put this on this button and I think that the button is kind of too close to the chain I don't like how it looks just add another jump a ring and just make a little bit longer very go do you guys have cool collections of buttons? I don't sew garments but I just love buttons I s o I do have buttons all right so I just added a jump ring to that button it's a little tight so I could add another jump ring to that if I wanted to move it further away from the chain but I'll have to sew I think for our demo I will just use it as it is and it will just be a charm that's kind of snuck up to the chain which I guess would be good it would keep it from kind of jingling around so much and I also find that if I have a certain arrangement of charms that I like I'll just snap a picture of it with my phone so that I have a reference for it so funny how you can really forget from one minute to the next I'm glad to know that it's not just me do that with almost everything now what do we do without our smartphones whips so you're just kind of coaxing this on directly onto a link on the chain I'm actually going to start with one that's a little bit further away yeah not so snug perfect very callous just not wanting to get on there we tried different tanks that changed pretty fix or maybe it's a chain just tried different version particular weights or has some of the links or a little bit thicker so like this chain the lynx or smaller so I think it would probably I mean there's still open that I think it would work a little bit better that when it would work if you guys want to watch me for the next thirty minutes try to get that on it would definitely work. Wait go okay let's try this one yes necklace chain as the bracelet chain and if you did that, how would you clean the chain before you I started using it such a good idea I don't even think about that. Yes, well, so it isn't just a piece of costume jewelry. Yeah, yeah, so I would just use the liquid jewelry cleaner and just shine it up you know, clean it up and trim off you could even use one half of the closure and just trim it to size and then maybe add a jump a ring to the edge and use the existing closure so here I actually I got this on you, dear. So there you have the first one, but I've just looped the jumper ring through the chain and you just literally it's it's it's simple and by making it look hard, it's actually really simple and you're going to repeat that to create these so you can see in my charm bracelets that I made appeared these loops or pretty large and there are several versions of large some art this large, but that is how you do it and you do it over and over again to people all your charms on, so do you want to see me do it again? Does it doesn't make sense or um why don't I just put the coin on? I love the coin I remember when I used to travel to hong kong for my job and I would bring back the money and I would give it to my kids and they always it always looked like so much money yeah I was like well you really can't do a whole lot with it it's not as much as you think so this has the bail on the back that has completely drive this is completely good to go and so I've left the little ring or the top of the bail sticking up so I'm just going to put that through the jumper ring so now it's on the it's securely on there so now we'll just attach this to the term bracelet and because we're using these wonderful split ranks the's charms are not going to fall off and they do have these split jump rings in silver and be a precious metal so if you wanted to make a silver charm bracelet and give it a gift to someone and you wanted tio I think I have a resource on the materials less where you can get these yes um if you had a charm that was a different colored medal than the chain that you're using would use the jump ring tio match the charm or the chain I probably matched the change and treat the charm just as its own thing I mean but again you could do it either way so there's the coin that was pretty simple to put on so it's just that is the process and for these little charms that we made same process you just put it on the same way so what I wanted to show next is how to do the closure because that's pretty much the same but just so that you guys so the type of closures that I like to use maybe you can tell me the name of thes bar toggle class thank you so let's get a look at this these air just it's like an eye and a no and the eye fits into the oh and it's so easy to put on and it's really secure so I'm going to take one of these off just so I can show you how to put this on and you I normally use a smaller jump a ring to put these on than what I used for my charms but if you're making a costume bracelet just used the same the same jump a ring so here's the eye the bar so I'm going to put this on a jump ring and this is pretty much just exactly the same as putting the charms on erica there's like little flecks of that glue from that hearing all over the place I keep getting in front of where I'm trying to work here you go uh there's that okay so there's the eye and then we'll use the oh so the always the same thing. It just has the loop that you put the jump ring through. Merry go. All right. So now, these both have ah, jumping on them, and you're just going to attach them to either side the same way that we attach the charms and you're done. I would suggest, you know, a pretty little box to put this in and give to someone and maybe top it with a little recycled sweater flower that I have available in another class on creative live. But that's, basically it.
Class Materials
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Ratings and Reviews
a Creativelive Student
Disappointing!! This is such a basic course with the instructor having less knowledge on the tools, materials and all pertinent information that would make it a tutorial that I would purchase. The instructor has surely taken "her" time meddling deconstructing and putting things together for minutes as if she has not much to talk about with awfully long .... gaps of silence and at one point commenting on " Well, this can be done if you give me 30 minutes!" ( Putting a bead through a jump ring! ). She does not seem to have a "better" system on putting this on without fuss that I and perhaps the students may know! I suggest that if Ms. Blair has had it prepared to get the beads she needed, do a research in youtube and really know beyond whats presented then it would sell. The students seems to even suggest and identify the materials for her ! Her tentative use of words and even contrasting themselves made it more confusing to follow along! Example , " Let's now do this .. You can do this ... but you don't have to" , "Let's use this ...but you don't have to" ..."Where is? ... I forgot to bring it ... then proceeded to do it anyways". and MORE :( I suggest that Creativelive would screen their instructors thoroughly and not based it on just a book somebody authored etc. Experience is MORE RELEVANT and the ability to convey a thorough knowledge and burning passion of what their teaching. I really want to learn more about Beaded Jewelry and Creating Clasp etc... I am sure there are a lot out there! Amazon book best sellers with high commendations from their reviews and YouTube. Keep up the great work! Creativelive !!! I am a fan.