DIY Thursday: Pop Tab Earrings

Recently at a family party I noticed that my sister in law had a pair of really cool looking earrings on that appeared to be made out of pop tabs. I have seen bracelets and purses made out of pop tabs, but never earrings. I thought they looked really cool so I asked her where she got them and she said that Josh (her husband) made them. I was quite impressed and figured that if he could make them then I could definately make some. I checked out a few different tutorials on how to these earring and then decided it was time to start creating. Here's my tutorial for making these cool and creative earrings. Hopefully it makes sense and if not please feel free to ask any questions!

Pop Tab Earrings

What you will need:

• Hammer
• Sandpaper
• Nail Clippers
• Cardboard or a scratch block of wood
• A tac
• jump rings
• beads
• 2-4 Pop tabs (If you want some color instead of the plain metal color get some tabs off of energy drinks)
• Earring attachments



 Step 1:

Bend the little tab back on each of your pop tabs and sand the area after.

 This is what your tabs will look like. For this tutorial I'm doubling up on the pop tabs, but it is ok to just use two. I have a picture of another pair I made just using two tabs at the bottom of this post.

 Step 2:

Place your pop tab on your cardboard or other hard surface. I had a little scrap of wood that I used. Place tac at the top of the tab and pound with your hammer until you feel the tac go through the tab. Do the same thing on the other end of the tab. Sand the backs where you just made your holes if necessary. If  you are using two tabs for each earring you will want to put them both together and hammer the tac into both of them at the same time so that your holes match up.

Step 3:

Grab a jump ring, open it up with some pliers or nail clippers wide enough to place through the hold at the bottom of your tab(s) and then pinch it shut to close the gap.

 Step 4:

Attach another jump ring onto the jump ring you just attached to the pop tab, this time placing a small bead onto the jump ring and putting in on to face the opposite direction of the other jump ring. Pinch it together.

 Step 5:

Attach a jump ring at the top your tab. Make sure to pinch it shut. Next, add another jump ring making sure it faces the opposite direction. Attach your earring onto this jump ring and make sure to pinch this ring shut.

Step 6:

If you don't mind your earring being simple you can go ahead and skip this step, but if you are like me and are totally not into simple then go ahead and add more jump ring and beads onto the sides of the tabs. You can add as much as you like:)



You now have a cool, trendy, new set of earrings to show off to the world!

 This is another set I made using a total of two pop tabs instead of four. A positve thing about doing double tabs is that they can be reversible so you get "two pairs" of earring  in a sense. They are a little more time consuming though. I think I got the single tab earring set done in about a half hour. The double tab ones take about 15 minutes longer. This was my first time doing these too so I'm sure the more you do the faster you get.

You can find this awesome post linked up to the following Fantastic Parties:

Wild Card Wednesday: Mother's day gift ideas

Mothers Day is coming soon and I know we are all looking for the prefect gift to give those special moms in our lives. These are all the rage right not and are all over for a pretty penny. I am here to show you how to make your own for a reasonable price.

I have wanted one of these for a while now so I made me one and one for my mom for my kids to give her.

What you will need is

- Jewelry wire (I prefer using a 24 gage because it is easier to manipulate but the 20 gage can work well too with the help of some round nose pliers)
- pearls or glass beads
- necklace chain
- jump ring and a clasp

I found these necklace chains at Walmart on clearance. They are called Connect and wear 

Find the beads you would like and string them on the wire and arrange them the way that you would like
(You can use as many beads as you want, I use 3 cause I have 3 kids)

 Start to wrap the wire around the beads and just keep going till you get the thickness you want for the nest

Take a smaller piece of wire and wrap it in between each bead to hold it together

 Add a jump ring and a clasp if you want one and attach it to the necklace

 I love them and am very exited to wear mine for Mother's Day

Mother's Day Corsage
I went through my scraps of fabric and found some lace, pink silky material and ji found two different types of white that i thought would go good together.
I cut them into circles, it doesn't matter if they are perfect circles just free hand them the best you can.
I also had some pearls the i strung to make a band for the flowers to go on.

 I started with a white felt circle to hot glue my pieces to. Fold them into thirds or bunch them up. Place them on the glue and do that all the way around your felt circle.

 Do another layer on top of that

 When you make the smaller flower you will do the same steps but start with a smaller felt circle.

I cut out another piece of felt to glue on the back to hold both of them together.

 Glue the strand of bead/pearls to the back and slid it on your wrist and you now have a really cute long lasting flower that Grandma or Mom can wear on Mother's Day.

I hope all you wonderful Mothers out there have a WONDERFUL Mother's Day!

WHITNEY




Okay Hi this is Teresa I am trying to add this to Whit's post before i leave for work (should've left 5min ago) I cant seem to find the pics i edited and the one with the finished project picture so i will either find it tonight or take another pic of my daughters tonight.
Okay i am the leader in my church over the 8-11 yr old girls so we wanted to make a cute easy mothers day project with the girls so i took these cut 2x4s they are about 4 inches long. the girls painted them, wrote a message to their mom on a piece of paper then we glued the note on one side the a picture of each girl on the opposite side. I love mine (I got mine early cause my daughter LOVES me) the hand written message is really cute and personal. Adrea can't wait to make one for all her grandma's (I better get cutting cause she has a LOT of grandma's that love her)
Well i am late for work but i hope this helps you with some simple ideas for moms!

You can find this awesome post linked up to the following Fantastic Parties: