Make Hardware Jewelry

What You Need:

• Nuts, bolts, washers, or screws
• Thin craft wire
• Claps, necklace chain, or earring hooks (found at craft stores)
• Scissors
• Paper and pencil

What You Do:

1. Collect and clean hardware that your teen wishes to use in her jewelry.
2. Next, encourage her to sketch a design that creatively combines different hardware pieces. Invite her to come up with a cool pattern or a unique way of overlapping the different pieces. Coming up with a plan beforehand will make the later stages easier.
3. Now, ask her to lay the hardware out to match her design.
4. Have her use the craft wire to hold the hardware pieces together. She can do this by cutting a piece no more than 6 inches in length and wrapping it around two separate pieces of hardware. This should create a tight attachment.
5. After wrapping the wire, twist the loose ends together and trim any excess wire.
6. She should repeat this process, attaching additional pieces of hardware until the piece is complete.
7. Have her attach the finished ornament to the jewelry chain by threading the chain through part of the hardware, or creating a loop of wire and using that as a hook.

An alternative method to wiring the hardware together is threading it onto a necklace chain or string (like beads), and creating a unique pattern in this manner.