Ribbon Jewelry (A Tutorial for the Craft Inept)

Okay, so it's not that you're inept, rather, I am. I know I do a lot of projects, but if it's too difficult to keep together with airplane glue, or duct tape, then just forget about it. I cut corners, I know that if someone isn't going to see it, then why not cover it in duct tape and modpodge?

However, when I saw that Michael's was trying to sell necklaces of ribbon for nearly $4, I couldn't bring myself to do it. I'd wanted to make necklaces using ribbon for quite awhile, but couldn't bring myself to spend nearly $10 to buy a few of them to practice on. What  did instead, was bought some ribbon and was on my way to go home and see if I could make this work.

What I made turned out very lovely, although, yes, duct tape is involved. If you have a large pendant that you don't think chain will do justice to (or in my case, a pendant with brass accents that would look awful on a silver chain), ribbon is a good alternative, and always adds an extra sense of elegance to whatever you're wearing.

What you'll need:

- Ribbon
- Duct tape to match (Black tape on black ribbon, blue on blue, etc....I used this because I happened to have it lying around, and it matched my choice of ribbon the best)
- Two Crimp End Caps
- One Jump Ring
- One Lobster clasp.
- Pendant(s) of your choice

How to do it:

1. Cut two lengths of ribbon about 17" (If you're going for a choker. Longer or shorter if desired).

2. Fold the last 1/2" or so of the end of ribbons in half and then in half again, wrapping a short length of duct tape around it. It will now somewhat resemble a shoelace or sorts. Do this for both ends, using both ribbons.

3. Before taping your end cap on, I would attach your jump ring/lobster clasp, respectively. this will make things a lot easier. Pinch he duct tape, so it's small enough to put the end cap on.

4. Tape it on, so it is secure.

5. Do the same thing for the other side.

 Add your pendant, and you're set! You've got a beautiful ribbon choker for 1/50th the price of a pre-made ribbon. And using this method, you can customize the length of your necklace.

This is another choker I made, but using tarantula fang beads from my molted Pink toe, Brynhilde, and using a shorter length of ribbon. Adding multiple smaller pendants gives this choker an added dimension, and the short length is good for fragile beads.


B-B-B-BONUS TUTORIAL.

Ribbon bracelets are also very easy, and something else that is generally rather overpriced at jewelry and department stores. This didn't take very long, but will require very, very minimal sewing (don't worry, I tried both glue and tape, but sewing was the only thing that worked).

What you'll need:

- Ribbon
- Beads
- Needle and Thread (or a fancy pants sewing machine if you have one).

1. My beads happened to be a pre-made length at Michael's bargain bin for just under $2, but you can do whatever you'd like. Use a length of about 4" or so (just shorter than your wrist.)

2. Through the jump rings on either side, pull your ribbon through. Both my ends ended up being about 7" or so, I believe, with an extra 2" to sew on the bottom. It may seem too long for a bracelet, but remember that you're going to be using the ribbon to tie a bow, and will need quite a bit of length.

3. Fold about 2" or so underneath the ribbon. About 1/2" away or so, sew the ribbon onto itself. Cut any excess ribbon off from the undersside that you just sewed on. do this on both ends.

Now you have a beautiful ribbon bracelet!

Hopefully if you guys have some extra ribbon and jewelry stuff lying around, you'll now have an excuse to make something from it.

How to Make (Badass) Sculpey Pendants

Remember in my last post how I said you should get a lot of necklace chain in case you end up making more jewelry? Well here's another tutorial on how to make some simple pendants using polymer clay (sculpey) and pictures.

Dragon in an Egg (hence why he's upside down). My favorite one.

The original tutorial was found here.

Thor was my practice piece and didn't turn out great.

Due to some issues I had, here are some tips I have for you along with the original tutorial:

- First of all, Sculpey is actually somewhat toxic when you cook it. After doing this project I had a bit of a headache, and just didn't feel well. I would recommend doing this project with as many windows open as you can, with fans in as many of them as you can. I would also recommend going into another room while the sculpey is cooking, and closing the door, then doing that for awhile afterward. I did not take any of this advice and I had a headache for quite awhile, and felt kind of nauseous.

- Second of all, if you sculpey looks like this after you've cooked it:

...then you've done it all wrong. It should still be white when you take it out, or the corners should be brown in the worst case scenario. After some extensive Google Fu, I found out that apparently burning Sculpey smells funny, but since I don't have a sense of smell I can't vouch for that, but I think you should be aware of it as a warning.

- All ovens are different, and be aware of how yours works. I would recommend doing a test square to see how long you should bake it.

-I would also do one piece at a time, in case you really ruin things. That way all your time, effort and energy haven't been put to waste (see above picture...)

- In the tutorial, she uses a pasta machine, but a rolling pin works just as well. Have some patience. Don't roll it back and forth in a crazy frenzy. Push it forward once, lift and repeat. This is good for 2 reasons: it won't stick to your rolling pin, and there will be absolutely no air bubbles when you do it this way.

Absurd and badass.

The tutorial says to use pictures printed off, but I don't have a printer, so I used pictures from already cut up books and a promotional comic book that I got for free from my place of work. As you can see, you can do any shape. The dragon there did take a long time, and my only tip for you if you do something like that is this:

When you're cutting out your shape, keep in mind that cutting the shape from the sculpey is going to be be even more tedious than cutting the shape from the magazine/book/comic/paper, so simplify and cut corners when and if you can, because you need to be realistic. I omitted some spikes from the dragon because I had a hard enough time cutting them out, so I knew cutting them with the sculpey would be even more awful. I think it worked out :)

Good luck, and enjoy!

How to Make a Tarantula Fang Necklace, and adventures with jewelry in general.

Both my tarantulas molted last October, and their molts have been sitting around doing nothing since then waiting for me to do something with them. I've been meaning to put them in a shadow box to display, but frankly, I just couldn't get myself to spend the money on a shadow box.


What I really wanted to do was make some tarantula fang jewelry, but I didn't even know where to start. I've never made jewelry, and I barely even wear it. Not only that, but I couldn't find a tutorial anywhere online about what I needed for tarantula fang necklaces or anything. But the stars were aligned yesterday and I went out to Micheal's to get some jewelry stuff.

Here's what I learned yesterday, and maybe you can learn something too.

- Chains: Micheal's (from what I can tell) sells 2 lengths of chains. They sell 3 feet of chain for about $3, or they sell a roll of 12 yards of chain for $10. I bought the latter. I was worried it would be cheap-looking, but as you can tell, it really doesn't. This, I think, is the much better deal. Even if jewelry making ends up not being for you, you can save money on future jewlry because....

- Charms: At a craft store, you can buy 4 charms for $4, while if you buy actual jewelry at a store, you'll pay anywhere from $10 - $20. With the roll of chain you have, the next time you go out to buy jewelry, just go somewhere like Michael's and buy a few charms for a few bucks. Put them on your extra chain, and increase your jewelry collection 200%. The heart you see there is one of 4 different hearts that I got.

- Tools: I knew I was going to need something, but I was pretty overwhelmed by all the different types of pliers I saw there. Honestly, I found a "basic beading" book and opened it up, and found that "Chain Nose Pliers" would be the best option for someone only buying one tool. They are good for opening up the chain so you can 'break off' a length for a necklace, not to mention opening up jump rings, and closing the clasps I used on the tarantula fangs.

- Other stuff (Jump Rings, Lobster Clasps and End Caps With Loops): Jump rings (The rings that connect charms to the necklace) come in packages of no less than 150, I swear. I just wanted a few, and ended up getting a lot, because there just didn't seem to be any other options. Not a bad thing, though, they were still fairly cheap, and now I'm set for life in all my jewelry-making endeavors. Lobster clasps come in packs of 10, and are about $3. You may want to look around for other means of clasping, but I like lobster clasps the best, so I went with them. End Caps with Loops are what I used to put the tarantula fangs in. They come in packs of 50 or so.

How to make this:

- 3 Tarantula Fangs (After your tarantula molts, you can use your chain nose pliers to pull them out of the molt). For mine, I used 1 from a full grown rose hair (The one on the heart), and 2 from a full grown Pink Toe.
- 3 End caps with loops
- "Lost and Found" brand "Large Metals Heart" Charms.
- 5 Jump rings
- 1 Lobster Clasp
- I used 21" of chain, but you can use whatever is comfortable for you.

1. Attach Jump ring and Lobster clasp at the end of your chain.

2. Slightly close the end caps with your chain nose pliers, then put the thicker end of the tarantula fang as close to the bottom as you can (closing them slightly will keep them in place better). Completely close the end cap with your crimp nose pliers. You may hear some crunching, but that's not bad, as long as it's not too much. The fangs are surprisingly resilient. I made sure the 2 I was going to use on the chain were facing opposite directions so my necklace would have some symmetry. This took me a long time, so have some patience. Typing this out feels weird, because it truly was so much more difficult to do than to say.

3. Insert jump rings into all your your end caps.

4. Put jump ring through the bottom hole of the lacey heart.

5. Add jump ring to heart.

6. Attach heart to center of necklace.

7. Attach fangs on either side of heart. The spacing I used was 8 chain links away from the heart.

You can use your chain nose pliers for everything in this project.

Have fun!