Glass Headpin Challenge Blog Hop

Welcome to the next installment of my blog challenges! This blog hop was created to help challenge fellow jewelry designers by giving them a unique component, that they then put into a piece of jewelry. On the reveal day, we all show our finished pieces at our blogs!


This time around we were working with some lovely balled end Glass headpins from Gardanne Beads. These were particularly challenging because unlike regular headpins, the ends of the wire is balled.

I admit I took some extra time to think about these. I kept picking them up, rolling them around in my hands, and kept trying to come up with some funky and unique way to incorporate these into a finished piece. For awhile, I got nothin.  The balled end prevents you for adding beads onto the headpin unless the bead holes were big enough.  I had a few extras that Anne sent me to play with so I ended up using them all in one final necklace design.

 The basic idea of my design is that I spiraled the wire of the headpins with my round nose pliers and then opened links in the chain and attached the headpins so that the ball would hold them from falling through the chain. Then I added some extra pattern by doming out some vintage tin discs, and attached them to the chain between the headpin dangles.

 Here's a better photo of the headpins on the chain.

 I added another tin disc at the back and the small brass hook clasp slips around the tin "button" closure.

I like how it turned out! Pretty excited to see what the other participants did too. Be sure to hop through the list:

Lorelei Eurto (you are here)

Lesley Watt

Lisa Cone

Song Beads

Starseed Jewelry

Alice Peterson

Rochelle Brisson

Star Girl Jewelry

Pam Ferren

Pine Ridge Treasures