Thursday 24 May 2007

Home-made Safety Pin Jewellery

By S. Roberts

Make a beautiful bracelet from safety pins and beads. No one will know what it's made of until they look really closely.

To make the bracelet you will need...
Roughly 85 silver safety pins of the same size, an assortment of small beads and some sheering elastic.

Decorate each safety pin by opening each pin and slipping on some beads. Make sure there are enough beads to fill that side of the safety pin once the pin is closed again. Close the pin and use a pair of plies to squeeze the head of the safety pin to hold the pin firmly closed.

Decorate each pin in this way, adding beads to pins in a random way.

The pins are now threaded together. You will notice that there is a hole in the pinhead and another hole at the other end of the safety pin where the metal is turned, creating a circle. These are the holes used when threading up the pins.

Two lines of elastic are used one at the top and one below with the pins threaded onto them like the rungs of a ladder. To begin, thread the top line through the head of the first pin and the bottom line and through the circle hole. With the second pin, thread the top line through the circle hole and the bottom line and through the head of the pin.

Continue adding pins to the lines in this way alternating which way you add each pin. Make sure when you add the safety pins that all the beads are visible on the same side.

When the last safety pin has been added tie the two ends of the top line together so that all the pins sit closely together. Then tie off the bottom line in a similar way.

S. Roberts is one of Santa’s Helpers and writes for www.santaspostbag.co.uk a Christmas educational & activity website. For more festive ideas & gifts to make visit www.santaspostbag.co.uk/homemade-christmas-gift-ideas.html SantasPostbag is in association with www.bigboystoyz.com Together keeping Christmas Magical