Scrabble Necklace Tutorial

Only 3 days till Christmas! Everyday I get a little more excited.

This week I have been working on homemade Christmas Gifts, inspired by Pinterest of course. I saw this Pinspiration a few months ago and have been really excited to make this for my friends for Christmas. A personalized necklace with their initial on it. LOVE IT!!!!

The thing with Pinterest pins is sometimes you don't click on the picture to see where the link leads to. So when I was ramping up to go buy the supplies and get to work on this gift, I got on Pinterest and clicked the pin and it went to a page to buy this necklace for $36.99! Well that is a little too rich for me. I searched all over the internet to find a tutorial on how to make a Scrabble tile necklace, and fail. I have never made jewelery before, but I figured how hard can it be.

So with the help of this Pinspiration, and for a fraction of the cost of one, I made 12 necklaces. Here is how...

First I went to an antique shop that sold Scrabble tile pieces for $0.25 each. You can also find the tiles on Esty.com, or you can just use your own scrabble game if you want.

Once I had all the tiles, I went to Michael's in search of a chain of some sort. I'm not a huge fan of fake chains, I didn't want my friends to have green necks. So I found a great alternative, and it came with the clasps I needed to make the necklaces. I went with waxed cotton cord. Each package came with enough hardware to make 5 pieces of jewelry for $3.99. I had to buy 3 packages.

Next I used my neck to guesstimate how long I wanted the necklace to be, once I finished one necklace I went and cut the rest in relation to how much longer or short I thought it should be. Then I set a side 2 crimp hardware pieces (included in chain set), 1 clasp (included in chain set), and 1 0.35in/9mm jump ring ($2.99 for a 85 pieces), for each neckalce.

For each necklace I used needle-nose pliers and crimped on the end pieces to both ends.

Then I used the pliers to open the ring on one side of the crimp hardware and applied the clasp, then closed the crimp ring

The next step I had a little help with. My husband drilled all the holes in the Scrabble tiles with a 1/16" drill bit.

Lastly, I used the needle-nose pliers to open the 9mm jump ring, put it through the drilled hole in the Scrabble tile, closed the jump ring. Now it's time to put the tile on the necklace. And Ta-da...

I did find that the wax cord was having trouble straightening out (like it had kinks in it), since it was wrapped around the board that it was packaged with. So I put it between a dish towel and ironed it at medium heat, and it worked like magic!

This was sort of a Pinterest Success, definitely an Olivia Success! I made one for me and I love it, I think my friends will love it too!

Neighbor Christmas Gifts

I'm getting so excited about Christmas, only 4 days away! I had a very successful shopping week, and successful Pinterest homemade gifts week. Now I just have to start wrapping and then I will be all ready for Christmas.

This weekend I am going to start giving out some of the Pinterest Pinspiration project gifts. The first Pinspiration was for a neighbor gift. We have the world's best neighbors and they deserve the world, but instead they are going to get these cute inexpensive gifts I made. :)

My inspiration came from this Pinterest Pin:

They just made Chex Muddy Buddies, added Christmas M&Ms, and put in a container. Since they used Starbucks Frappuccino Containers and I didn't have those, I went with a different container.

Muddy Buddies are so easy to make, here is the quick recipe (also found on the back of a Chex box)...

Chex Muddy Buddies

9 cups of Rice Chex (or Corn Chex, Chocolate Chex, Honey Nut Chex, even Cinnamon Chex is great)

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/4 butter or margarine

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 bag of milk chocolate M&Ms

1. Measure out 9 cups of Chex in a large bowl and set aside.

2. In a medium, microwavable-safe container, add chocolate chips, peanut butter, butter\margarine, and vanilla. Microwave uncovered for 1 minute, then stir. Microwave 30 seconds longer or until mixture can be stirred smooth. 

3. Pour smooth mixture over cereal, until evenly coated.

4. Then pour cereal into a large Ziploc bag (2 gallons, although I used a 1 gallon and it worked just fine).

5. Add powdered sugar to the bag. Seal the bag, then shake until well coated. Once that was finished, I added the mix back to the bowl (after I cleaned it), and added the bag of M&Ms.

6. Once it was all cooled, I added it to the containers I bought. I cheated a little, because last year my friend gave us Chex Muddy Buddies in a Christmas Tree container, so I found more of them at Walmart for $1.98 each.

 

I'm excited to give our neighbors their Christmas gift. I think the Chex Muddy Buddies are delish, and the containers are super cute; so I think it's a Pinterest Success. But the neighbors might not think that :P

Week 21 Theme...

Christmas is right around the corner, NO LITERALLY it is just about a week away! Every year I am so wrapped up in everything Christmas time has to offer, that I get so behind on gift buying. This year seems even worse; I have some major shopping to do the next eight days.

Since we are a family on a single income, I like to make some sort of inexpensive homemade gifts for friends and neighbors. Thanks again to Pinterest, there are a million and seven ideas for homemade gifts. Maybe my homemade gifts can step it up a notch this year, with the help of some Pinspiration.

This week's Pinterest Challenge is to make homemade Christmas gifts for my friends and neighbors. I'm going to have to find time somehow in this busy shopping schedule this week to complete this task, maybe I should be looking a Pinterest Pins on time management instead. :P

I am looking forward to seeing what I can create on a budget, and hopefully it won't be too lame, so people will actually like it.