Charmed Ribbon Necklace
By Johanna Love,
Director of Photography

To make the 5 charms plus one clasp charm:
Cut seven 6-inch pieces of wire. Feed a wire through one of the loops on each of the 5 findings and bend each in half so the findings lay flat on your work surface. For the 6th finding, feed a wire through each of its 2 loops and bend each in half to later use for the necklace clasp. If you want to add a bead dangle off any of your charms, you must add it to them now before moving on to this next step. Cut 12 short strips of ribbon that are slightly wider than the Patera findings you are using as charms. They will be shaped either as either squares or rectangles, depending on the width of the ribbon. Lay one ribbon square down, put a daub of DG3 in the middle, press another ribbon square down on top to form an 8-pointed flower, put another large daub of DG3 in the middle, then press the finding with the wire intact down firmly in the center. Then cut an image from the ARTchix collage sheet to fit within the finding, place a daub of DG3 in the center of the finding, and press the image down on the glue. Fill in the entire finding with DG3 to completely cover the image, and also let some spill over the edges onto the ribbon to strengthen the bond between the ribbon squares and finding. Now that you’ve created your charms from the findings, let the 5 charms and 1 clasp charm dry for a full 24 hours on a level surface.

To construct the ribbon necklace: It is easiest to make the necklace and clasp first before attaching all the charms. To make the ring for one side of the clasp, take about 6 inches of wire, bend one end to make a small hook, wrap 3 times around your finger, and bend a hook with the other end that catches the first hook. Trim excess wire, and tighten the bends in the hooks with fingers or pliers to secure. Then take one or multiple ribbons, measure to be almost 2 inches longer than your favorite necklace, and cut. Feed one end of the cut ribbons through the ring you just made, bend over about 1/2 inch of ribbon back on itself, take about 6 inches of wire and wrap it very tightly around the ribbons just below the ring until the entire wire is used. To fully secure the ribbons, bend the ends of the wire back into the ribbon ends so they won’t slide out. At the other end of the necklace, fold the ribbon ends over about 1/2 inch, and then wrap wire to secure them in the same manner so you are left with a loop of ribbon at the end to attach the rest of the clasp. Take the clasp charm you made previously (the finding with wires through each of its 2 loops), feed both ends of one of the folded wires through the ribbon loop and wrap back around itself near the clasp charm several times to secure it to the ribbon. Trim any excess and/or fold wire ends back into the wire wrap. To make the hook part of the clasp, twist the other wire with your fingers to make the 2 wires become one sturdier wire, then bend over your thumb once and bend back and trim.

To attach the charms to the necklace: Simply wrap the wire you attached to them around the ribbon until all the wire is used; wrap one end around one direction, then the other end around in the other direction, and then tuck the ends into the ribbon to secure. You can have the charms all toward the front, or spaced all the way around, or unevenly spaced. Now wear proudly!