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!