In my on going quest for throwing less “waste” away and finding uses for everything I’ve been thinking of more way to utilise these saved items. Otherwise I might be in danger of becoming a hoarder of “Potentially useful waste items”. So here is my scrap wire necklace.
When I was recently made all the examples of the revamped Boho Earring kits and used many headpins, I kept all the off cuts. I had the intention of making some new headpins from them. I did this by hammering the ends. I have used this technique before, it’s very satisfying, as you’re not only using “waste” materials, you get to bash some metal too.
Getting Started
I simply hammered the last 5mm or so of the head pins. I hammered the original finished end of the head pins, rather than the cut end to make them neater. I used the ball end of a chasing hammer so that I created a subtle dappled effect. This isn’t essential as you don’t see much of the headpin once beads are threaded on. I hammered all the pieces of wire first, so then I could get stuck into adding beads.
Selecting Beads
I used our Colourful Crystal mix with size 5 transparent lustre seed beads, but you really could use any random beads; seed beads, big bead, small beads, whatever you fancy. I tried to keep to a bit of a theme with jewel tone colours here. Because the hole size in the size 5 seed beads and crystal mix were still a little bit big for the width of the head pins. I added a single size 11 silver lined mix seed beads onto the pin first to act as a stopper. Then I threaded one each of the size 5 seed beads and crystal beads, followed by another size 11 seed bead.
I tried to keep the colours bright and random. I threaded all the beads on first, I actually didn’t use all my pins. I just stopped when I thought I had enough beads threaded on. I created 34 in total.
I then created a loop at the top of each pin. By drawing a line on my round nose pliers I could ensure all the loops were consistent. I simply rolled the top of the pin down and didn’t trim off any of the wire, I wanted to make the most of the off cuts and this way I ended up with lots of different lengths to make a more varied necklace.
Assembling the Scrap wire Necklace
To make up the necklace I simply threaded the pins, with the loop facing the same way (“P” at the back), onto 1mm Navy Blue waxed cotton cord. I alternated them with more of the size 5 transparent lustre seed beads. I knotted each side to keep everything in place. Then used a 1mm slide clasp to make the necklace fully adjustable. As a little finishing touch I also added a seed bead to each end of the cord.
I really like this necklace, it turned out better than I expected and it was fun to create. Let us know how you get on if you make your own scrap wire necklace. Remember to tag us when you share your makes on social media so we can see the result too.
Happy beading!