Difficulty level: Intermediate
Time required: 30 minutes
Age range: 12 and up
Things you’ll need:
Fish hook earring wires
4mm jump rings
Plastic heart charms
Flat-nose jewelry pliers
Things to do:
- Using flat-nose jewelry pliers, open a jump ring by pulling one side of the ring away from you. Note that you do not want to simply open the ring out to the sides at the join; this will weaken the jump ring and maybe even break it.
- Place the jump ring through one of the charms, then through the loop at the end of the earring wire.
- Using flat-nose pliers, squeeze the jump ring closed around both the charm and the earring wire.
- Open a second jump ring, insert it through the first jump ring with the charm on it, then close the second jump ring.
- Open a third jump ring. Add a charm to the jump ring. Tip: If you’re having problems inserting the jump ring with your fingers, you can grasp the jump ring with the needle-nose pliers then slip the charm around it. If the charm keeps falling off when you do this, close the jump ring up a little after attaching the charm, leaving just enough space to slip the jump ring around the previous ring.
- Slide the charm jump ring into the previous jump ring. Note that you are connecting the charm to the jump ring in step 4, not the jump ring that has a charm on it. You should now have two charms connected by jump rings.
- Repeat steps 4-6, adding jump rings and jump rings with charms, until the earring is the desired length. You can add as many or as few charms as you’d like.
- Create a second earring. This earring can be identical to the first, if you’d like, or you can use different colors of charms.
