Crystal Dangle Earrings

Hey, friends!!  If you haven’t already heard my {super-duper, jumping-up-and-down, crazy-exciting} news, let me share it with you here!  In October, I will be attending……dramatic drumroll here……..the 2013 Lucky FABB Conference in Manhattan!

If you’ve never heard of the Lucky FABB Conference, it’s an invite-only event for bloggers that, well…I’ll let them tell you in their own words.  This is from the conference website:

“Lucky FABB brings together some of the world’s most influential bloggers, writers, editors, designers and tech stars in the world. Past conferences have included Jenna Lyons, Diane von Furstenberg, Zac Posen, Kiernan Shipka, Joan Rivers, Drew Barrymore and countless other huge forces in the fashion and tech world.  All conference attendees are must apply to attend so we can make sure that our audience is made up of serious, full-time, legit and stylish bloggers.”

How crazy-awesome is that?!  I’m beside myself with excitement!  Except for the moments when I’m mentally going through every single item in my closet and jewelry box trying to figure out what in the world I’m going to wear!  I figure that a style conference is a great excuse for a little something new, but since I don’t want to break the budget, I came up with this pair of statement earrings that may or may not be coming along with me on my trip to NYC!

I figure they’ll add some instant glam to whatever I end up deciding to pack.  Want to make some of your own?  Here’s how!

Materials:
{Disclosure: My crystal beads were provided free of charge by Wholeport.com}
– kidney ear wires
– 2 Light Blue Crystal Beads 10 mm
– 2 small round silver beads
– 4 small clear crystal beads
– 8 head pins
– 4 jump rings
– jewelry tools: wire cutters, needle nose pliers, flat nose pliers

Step 1: Place your crystal bead onto a head pin.  Using your pliers, bend the pin right above the bead at a 90 degree angle.  Wrap the excess wire back over itself to form a wire loop and continue wrapping until wire is used up.  For a full video tutorial on wire wrapping, see this post!

Step 2: Repeat step 1 for each bead. {You can also opt to make simple wire loops instead of doing the wrapping.  I wrapped my large crystals, but made simple loops for the smaller beads}.

Step 3: Open a jump ring with your pliers {twist, never pull!} and attach a large crystal bead, a small silver bead, and a second jump ring to it.  Close that ring.

Step 4: Open the second jump ring and add two small crystal beads.  Close the ring tightly.

Step 5: Slide the top jump ring onto your ear wire.  You can use standard fish hook ear wires if you like, which will give you shorter earrings, or to make a bolder statement, try this kind, called kidney earwires!

That’s all there is to it!  Once you get the hang of wire wrapping and loops, the rest is a breeze!  Now you have a fun pair of statement earrings that will make any outfit look glamorous…or at least I sure hope so!  {Honestly: As excited as I am, there’s this little part of me that’s afraid all these stylish and gorgeous fashion bloggers and designers are going to look at me and go, ‘your clothes are ugly and so are you.’  They won’t right??}

Ta-da!!

Oh, by the way, if these beads look familiar, it’s because they are!  Where have you seen these pretty gems before?  The beaded charm tutorial!  Hope you enjoyed this project; as always, if you try your own version I’d love to see how it turns out for you!

Hugs & Glitter,