How To: Grapevine DIY Earrings

One of my favorite things about the arrival of spring is spring color.  I love adding colorful accessories, and I have a great project to share with you for doing exactly that.  Today, I’m going to show you how to make a pair of grapevine DIY earrings!

Just like any good jewelry project, feel free to put your own spin on the design of these DIY earrings and choose other colors or even other sizes of beads!  Personally, I am loving turquoise this spring!

Supplies needed to make your own grapevine DIY earrings:

• 4mm Beads – You will need 13 beads for each earring.  I recommend 2 coordinating colors, but get creative! I used:
  • 4mm White Glass Pearl Beads
  • 4mm Turquoise Shell Twister Beads
• 2 inch Jewelry Head Pins (26)
• Earring Wires
• 4mm Jump Rings (26)
• 7mm Jump Rings (6)
• Round Nosed Pliers
• Wire Cutters

The first step is to make your beads into charms.  Charm-making is something I have shown you before when I shared the design for a Spring Charm Bracelet, and once you master it, there are so many possibilities in jewelry making.  To create a beaded charm, you just thread a bead onto a head pin.  Then, using your round nosed pliers, loop the pin over the pliers, wrap the pin around the “neck” of the loop you just created, and cut the excess wire off with your wire cutters.  The process is shown below:

If you find that the little tail you cut off is still poking out slightly, just use your pliers to wrap it more snugly.

Then, repeat the process until you have enough charms.  In my case, that was 26 charms.

The rest of the project goes much more quickly, though!  Next, chain three 7mm jump rings together, and attach them to an earring wire.

You can now begin adding your charms to the DIY earrings.  This works best if you start at the bottom.  Open a 4mm jump ring, and use it to attach a charm to the lowest ring.  On the bottom ring, you will attach 3 charms.

After you have added 3 charms to the lowest ring, add 6 charms to the center ring (3 charms on each side of the lowest ring), and then 4 charms to the top ring (2 charms to either side of the center ring).  This will give you that full “bunch” look!  I alternated colors so that my charms were pretty evenly mixed.  Of course, feel free to experiment, adding more or fewer charms to suit your own style!  You could also rock a bolder look by using some 6mm or even 8mm beads instead.

And your grapevine DIY earrings are finished!

What color combinations are you loving this spring?

Adrianne

Adrianne is a writer, artist, designer, wife, and mom of 2 kids. She blogs at happyhourprojects.com where the theme is tutorials and recipes that can be made in an hour or less. Her favorite projects are jewelry-making, paper crafts, and recycled crafts. She participates annually in ArtPrize, an international art competition, and she’s the author of the book DIY T-Shirt Crafts: 50 Ways to Recycle a T-Shirt (August 2015).