New Jewelry A Day: Make a Necklace from a Credit Card

Canceled or expired credit cards are great sources of raw material for jewelry making. The plastic is durable but light weight. Many credit cards have interesting pictures or designs on the face of the credit card. I recently canceled a credit card that had a scene of mountains on it. Since my daughter and I already demonstrated how to make a gift card into a bracelet and earrings, I thought this time we would use the credit card to make a necklace.

Materials
Credit card, gift card or other plastic card
18-gauge round copper wire

After: Necklace by GeltDesigns.com

Tools
Disc cutter
Size 50 drill bit
Drill (Flex shaft, Drill Press or Dremel)
Center punch or automatic center punch
Round nose pliers or 3-Step wire looping pliers
Chain nose or bent nose pliers
Wire rounder or needle file or cup burr and flex shaft

Step 1

Cut the credit cards

Cut the credit card into disks using a disc cutter, craft knife or scissors. We cut three 3/4-inch disks and four 7/16-inch disks for our necklace.

Step 2
Use a center punch to mark the disks where you want to drill holes so the drill bit will not slip when you drill.

Drill holes in the disks

Step 3
Drill two holes in each disk.

Step 4

"B" links made from copper

Create links to link the plastic disks.

We used some "B" links that were left over from the from our copper bib necklace project on December 21, 2010. We made the "B" links for that project and then decided to use "S" links instead, so we had a bunch already made. We used round nose pliers to form the "B" links by hand and then adjusted the links as needed using chain nose pliers. We then filed the end of the links smooth using a cup burr and our flex shaft.

Clasp by GeltDesigns.com

Step 5
Make the clasp.

Step 6
Assemble the necklace.

Step 7
Check the necklace for any sharp spots and file until smooth.

After: Necklace by GeltDesigns.com

Back: Credit Card Necklace by GeltDesigns.com

Further Reading
"Fabulous Jewelry from Found Objects: Creative Projects, Simple Techniques"; Marthe Le Van; 2007.
"Beaded Jewelry with Found Objects: Incorporate Anything from Buttons to Shells"; Carole Rodgers; 2004.
"Junk to Jewelry: A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Found Objects in Jewelry You Can Actually Wear"; Brenda Schweder; 2007.
"Cold Connections"; Tim McCreight (DVD)

New & Noteworthy
"Jewelry from Found Objects"; Heather Skowood; 2011.

Day 47. Month 3. Jewelry from Found Objects.
Found materials: credit card
New Jewelry a Day.

New Jewelry A Day

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Make a Necklace from a Credit Card

2 comments: