JEWELRY DIY: Miniatures Pendant Necklaces

It's no mystery that I love quirky jewelry. I always seek unusual materials to use for new jewelry designs. I've been searching for dollhouse miniatures locally for months, but striking out at every craft and hobby store I visited. On a trip to Michaels this week, I wondered down an aisle by the jewelry making supplies. To my delight, I saw a section of miniatures!!! It was hard to narrow down my choices. I decided on a silver tea tray, a old red lantern, a paint palette, an antique sewing machine, and corked vials. The lantern, sewing machine, and tray have holes I could easily attach jump rings and chain to. The palette, I had to drill small holes into the wood, to attach the jump rings and chain. The corked vials will be for a separate project that I'm still working out the design for. Ok, onto the tutorial.

SUPPLIES:

• Miniatures - Chose sturdy ones that have existing holes, or you can easily add holes to
• Enough wire jump rings to hang your miniature and make a clasp - A miniature with 1 hole, would need 1 jump ring + 2 for the closure. A miniature with 2 holes would need 2 jump rings + 2 for the closure. You get the idea
• Thin chain
• Lobster claps - One per pendant necklace
• A tape measure
• Jewelry pliers
• Hand drill and a thick surface to drill into - I use a Dremel cordless drill and a thick magazine. I have the 7 piece drill bit set and collet nut kit. I have a few extra things too, but they are unrelated to this project. Maybe I'll go over them in a future post...because power tools deserve a special post

The exact miniatures I used aren't listed on Michaels website, so I found comparable ones on Amazon, in case you wanted to buy similar ones to what I used.

• Silver tray
• Paint palette
• Sewing machine
• Red lantern

INSTRUCTIONS:

1) You need to examine your selected miniature and decided how you want it to hang. Does it have one, two, or more holes? If it has more than one hole, do you want it to hang from one or multiple holes? This will determine how much chain and how many jump rings you need, and how the pendant will hang.

2) If your miniature is wood and has no existing holes, like my paint palette, you will need to add your desired amount of holes. I chose to drill two holes using my Dremel and a thick magazine. I placed the magazine on my work surface. I placed the palette, top up on my magazine. Using a small bit, I carefully and slowly drilled my desired holes.

3) Using your jewelry pliers, open your jump rings. I use two pliers, one in each hand, to open my jump rings, because to me, it's easier than using only my fingers. Slip one end of a jump ring through your chosen hole of your miniature. Close the jump ring, so both ends touch. Do this for each chosen hole in each miniature you are using. I didn't do this for the lantern, as it had a large hole made from sturdy wire.

4) I made the chain for the sewing machine the same way I did in my Basic Chain Pendant Necklace tutorial. For the lantern, I made the chain a little longer, and looped it on the lantern handle. For the palette and tray, I measured the chain length to account for the width of each pendant. I attached the ends of the split chain to the separate jump rings. The lobster claps are exactly the same.

That's all for this tutorial. You use this concept for almost any object light enough for wearing as a pendant. This expands on my previous pendant tutorial. If chain isn't your thing, you could use cord or ribbon instead. Experiment with different materials to hang your chosen pendants. Once you learn the basics, it's good to experiment and expand on them, so you learn new things! Happy Makery!