Odd Days!: Don't Forget To Be Green :)

Here’s an interesting fact about me: My favorite holiday is St. Patrick’s Day. I’m not even kidding! I love Halloween, I enjoy Christmas, and I think Thanksgiving is great, but St. Patrick’s Day is the absolute best. I don’t know what it is about dressing up in all green and teasing (most of) my friends who don’t wear green, but I look forward to it every year.

One of my friends looked at me yesterday and said “I just realized St. Patrick’s Day is on a Thursday this year and I got really depressed. You’re going all out again, aren’t you?” (To put that statement in context – we don’t see each other in class on Thursdays.)

And yes, yes I am going all out (again). I’ve had this outfit planned for months now (because I’m sort of a dork like that).

But this wasn’t a huge tangent or anything. This entire little explanation had a purpose. St. Patty’s Day is in two days, and I’m helping you guys get in the cheer! It’s a simple, little necklace to add green to your Thursday!

What you will need:

Wire (if you remember the fish bowl project, I used the same wire I used there.)
Small Green beads
Small Yellow bead s
Even smaller White beads
A necklace clasp
Two loops
A Shamrock Charm!!! (Also, another fun fact: My mom calls me Clover. I have a huge attachment to Shamrocks/Clovers, etc.)
Needle Nose Pliers and Wire Cutters (or scissors if you don’t want to be fancy.)

Step 1: Loop a bit of the wire around your neck to determine the desired length. Add a little bit of extra length (less than an inch) because you will probably trim/twist it down a little. Clip the wire. On one end, it doesn’t matter which, twist the wire into a loop (it should be somewhat small) and twist the end of it down a little, along the length of the rest of the wire. Trim off the extra, and use the needle nose pliers to flatten the trimmed part, just a little so there aren’t any sharp edges.

Step 2: Use one of the loops. Find the recess in it, and pull both ends of the loop sideways – you should not be pulling them apart by moving them back from each other! One should be going left, the other right. Slip the clasp onto this, and then move it onto the loop you made with the wire. Using the needle nose pliers, press the two sides of the loop together.

Tip: I tend to press the ends of the loop together so they overlap a little bit before I press the ends flat together. That way, the way I see it, the clasp is less likely to slip off!

Step 3: Decide on the pattern you want. You can lay it out before hand if you want, although for a necklace with beads this small I tend to not do that. If it were a longer necklace, with a larger variety of beads, I would. The pattern I chose was this: 9 Green – 2 Yellow – 9 White – 2 Yellow – 9 Green – Etc.

Keep slipping the beads onto the wire using this pattern (or whichever pattern you choose to use) until there’s about 3/4 of an inch left of the wire. Just like the first step, you’re going to loop the wire and twist it around. If you have an extra loop like the one you used with the clasp, you can put it on the wire-loop. I didn’t, because since there’s already a loop on the wire now, you can just hook the clasp to that.

Step 4: With the last loop you have left (like the clasp-loop, not the wire-loops you’ve been making), use the pliers to open it up. Hook your charm to it. I added a little green bead behind the charm, just as a personal touch, but that’s all up to you. Put the loop around any part of the necklace (I put it around the white beads since they’re smaller) and close it using the same technique you did for the clasp. Try to leave it enough lee-way to move around a bit on your necklace; that way, even if the necklace twists behind you or something, the clover charm should still hang in the front!