How-To-Tuesdays: Wine Charms

This is one of the first tutorials that I wrote up for Crafty Daisies:

During one of your recent summer festivities, did you pick up “your” glass and, about to take a sip, discovered that the shade of lipstick on the glass rim didn’t match yours? To avoid such a shocking social faux pas consider spending 10 minutes making some wine charms.

Materials

• 4 inch length of copper wire per wine charm
• Dowel with the same circumference you want the charm to have. I used a broomstick
• Chain-nose pliers
• Wire cutters
• Anything you want to use to embellish the charms (beads, buttons, small hardware)

With the chain-nose pliers, make a P-shaped loop at the end of the wire.

Wrap the wire around the dowel to shape a hoop.

String the embellishments on the wire. These are plastic faceted beads.

Using the pliers, first bend up the P-loop by 90 degrees. If you hold up the hoop, the loop should be parallel to the table top. Then bend the straight end of the wire up to shape a right angle.

Trim the end of the straight wire so you can comfortably close the hoop by pushing the end through the P-loop. The whole thing will look like an earring hoop.

Here are some ideas to decorate the charms. Plunder the hardware store, or your jar of lose bolts and nuts for a more edgy look, or find some cool buttons and string them on wire or thread to attach them to the hoop.

Here I used ink jet shrink film to print and bake different shapes decorated with these digital papers designed by the talented Bobbi-lee. Check out her blog at tomandjasmine.wordpress.com.

Simone
groundsel.etsy.com