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This is one of the easiest jewelry making projects EVER, with my headpin-topped hatpin shaft findings found for sale on this website. If you purchase the findings, we will send you a print out of these instructions, but you can always come back here and reference the instructions as well!
All you need to do is select your beads in a pattern that pleases you. Thread them onto the hatpin shank, pulling up tightly to the headpin top. Do not bead more than HALF WAY down the shaft.
Next, thread on one of the tiny gold crimp beads.
With the crimping pliers you depress the crimp bead in the BACK groove of the tool. Press hard but not too hard or the bead may crack and you will have to replace it.
Next, depress the crimp bead AGAIN in the FRONT groove of the crimping tool. This smooths the bead, makes it tight and secure. This finding is what will hold your beads on the shaft. If the beads you have used are larger or heavy, you will probably want to thread on one crimp bead, crimp it, then thread on another and do it again, so that you secure with TWO beads.
All you need to do now is put on the nib, so you'll have it convenient and handy when you want to wear the hatpin. My five inch hatpin shafts are great worn as stickpins, too.
Just give me a basket of beads, some interesting spacers and bead caps and a fistful of shafts....and a couple of hours to kill! and I'll make enough hatpins to give all my friends, a few to sell and a couple for me! This is really an instant gratification project, a great stress reliever, and they look so pretty in a glass vase or old-fashioned hatpin holder on a dresser!
A great summertime project...if you like to spend time outdoors, easily done on a blanket at the beach or a picnic table at the campground. Super for busting the winter blues as well!
Check out our hatpin kit on the website, you get EVERYTHING you need to get going including a big fat bunch of shafts, nibs, crimps, crimping pliers and PRETTY glass beads!
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