Special Fabrics

This necklace can be created using ANY special fabrics from your life… whether it’s from your wedding dress, your mother’s dress, a quilt your grandmother knitted for you, a shirt that your father always wore or your babies first blanket. You can easily preserve that special piece of your life and wear it around your neck with the techniques I share here.

I would have loved to have been able to make a necklace like this with a piece from my grandmas dress, my moms dress, and my dress… but sadly we don’t have grandmas. I do have a dress of my grandma’s that’s actually falling apart so that would be perfect to use for this!

SUPPLIES:

1. E6000 Glue
2. 3 little pieces of special material
3. 24″ chain necklace
4. 2 – 3mm spacer beads
5. 1 – open 4mm jump ring
6. 1 – head pin
7. Glass Ball Jar Charm
8. Small pliers and wire cutter

*There are many different places that you can purchase these items but I’ve credited exactly where I purchased each one with shoppable links below. I choose to use “antique bronze”.

Gather your fabrics and start trimming them down to fit inside the glass bell. This glass bell is 1″ wide by 1.5″ tall.

I trimmed mine to about 1″ x 3″, the lace ended up being a tad bit shorter because it was thicker than the other materials and only needed to be rolled a few times.

Carefully roll up each piece of material.

So that your fabric doesn’t unravel inside your charm, add a tiny bit of tacky glue (or a really tiny bit of the E6000) to the inside flap and pin so it can dry a little. Let them dry for maybe 10 minutes and take the pin/clip off, you don’t want them to dry “pinched” you want them to look round and rolled. Here I’m using these super fun new Wonder Clips from Clover that I love, which are a sewing pin alternative.

Compare your rolled fabric piece to the size of the glass bell and trim if you need to so that they all fit inside nicely.

How to make the Necklace

Start by adding a spacer bead to the headpin and threading it through the hole in the top of the glass bell. You need to add the spacer bead so that the headpin won’t slip through the hole. A headpin is a straight piece of wire with a little stopper of some type on the end. There are many different types and designs for sale, you can use a plain one like this or a more embellished version.

Next, thread another spacer bead onto the headpin on the outside of the glass bell.

Holding the top of your headpin with a pair of needle nose pliers, bend the headpin to a 90* angle, switch your plier hand and position, then wrap the wire around the plier head to create a round loop.

Then wrap the tail of the headpin down and around itself several times to complete the wire wrap. Trim the excess and squeeze any left over wire into the wire wrap design with your pliers. Don’t let all these pictures fool you, this is a super easy technique. If you need to visually see this wire wrap happen in person you can check out this YouTube video.

The end result is a secure loop so you can hang this glass bell on a necklace.

Before you seal your glass bell forever, clean the inside first!!!

Open and add a jump ring onto your new loop.

Find the middle of your necklace chain and add the glass bell onto it using that open jump ring. Then close it using a pair of pliers to force it back together. Adding the charm straight to the chain necklace will prevent the chain clasp from moving around on you.

Add your special little material rolls into the bell, paying attention to how they are laying because this is it…

Add a small amount of E600 glue to the inside rim of the metal bell base and press onto the bottom of the bell. If you add too much glue to the base it might wick up into your fabric which doesn’t end up looking great. Let dry for 24 hours before wearing.

That’s it! You now have a beautiful keepsake that is fashionable and a conversation piece.

So what special material will you be using?

Ways to Get Wedding Dress Fabric

• BEST: Ask your alterations expert if you can have a small remnant from your alterations, tell them you’d like to make a keepsake necklace with it and they’ll be sure to save some for you!
• Trim some from the seams on the inside of your dress after your wedding. Some dresses will have a lot of seam allowance due to leaving room for alterations.
• Some wedding dress companies like Celia Grace, will actually send dress scraps with your dress!

This special little necklace would make a terrific gift for your grandmother or mother, how thrilled would they be to have a piece of your wedding dress!?

You can also use this necklace as a special way to remember someone on your wedding day. Simply use fabric from a loved one so that you can carry them with you all day.