the bradley necklace project

Here's a quick and super fun craft for mother's day or any normal day when you feel like being extra cute.

I call it the "Bradley Necklace and Bracelet".  Here's what you will need:

* Brads- either already made or ones you can assemble yourself.

* Jump rings

* beads

* Jewelry chain

* Clasp

* Needle nose pilers

* Clippers

All supplies are available at the craft store in the jewelry making section and the brads are most often found in the scrapbooking section.

I wanted to use my own fabric to cover the brads so I bought a tool called an iTop from Imaginisce. It allows you to easily cover metal brads with paper or fabric.

Just follow the directions on the package. Or you can just buy the brads already covered or painted. Either way is super cute.  

Once you have all the brads selected that you want to use start making loops onto the back using your needle nose pilers to bend the prongs. 

Like so.

Snip off the ends of the prongs so that you have a complete loop on each side of the brad.  Use your jump rings to join the brads.  For the bracelet, I used painted brads in a strait row, but for the necklace I added a brad here and there to create a cluster.

Play around with it until you get the look you want.  On the necklace I added a few beads and used my fabric to cover some large oval rings.

This project is simple enough to do with children from about age 5 and up.