DIY Personalised Charm Necklace

Those of you who remember back to my personalised earrings tutorial, will remember that I had a few of these elegant vintage charms leftover from my project.  Since the little cheeky monkeys so admired those charms, I decided to turn them into fun necklaces for them.  The necklaces are almost as simple to make as the earrings were, so keep reading to see how you can make a fun, personalised piece for your favourite little girl.

Supplies:

- vintage alphabet dangles (or alphabet charms of your choice)

- two glass beads of your choosing, similar or smaller in size than your alphabet charm

- length of chain (I used a 45cm length)

- jump rings

- headpins

- lobster claw claps

- 22 gauge beading wire

Instructions:

1. Lay out all of your supplies and grab your jewellery pliers; round-nosed, flat-nosed and cutting pliers are all handy here.

2. Turn each bead and alphabet charm into a dangle.  For the beads I did this by placing each bead onto a long headpin and then creating a loop which was then wrapped closed around the central pin.  For the alphabet dangle, I wire-wrapped it into a loop dangle with the beading wire.

NB: If you prefer, you can simply add a jump ring to the top of the alphabet charm and make simple headpin loops for the beads.  I chose to wire wrap mine as this make the dangles much sturdier, which is important when my monkeys are wearing the item!

3. Thread each dangle onto your chain, making sure you are happy with the order of your dangles as well as ensuring your dangles are all facing the same way (if they have a front and back side, that is).

4. Attach the jump rings and claps to the ends of the chain.

5. And there you go, a fun little necklace for a little girl who loves to wear her initials!