Hello World,
One of my friends gave me a bunch of keys for my birthday last year and a few more for Christmas this year, and I finally got around to using them to make some home decor.
I made a shabby chic chandelier/wind chime with the keys (she got them from Michael's) and some pearl garland I picked up at a yard sale for $0.50. Below is just the first stage of it. I probably will add more beads, tiers, and lace trim to it as I come across them while thrift shopping.
Check out the tutorial below to see how to make your own:
1. Gather your supplies: large keys, beads or pearl garland, scissors, yarn, an embroidery hoop, pliers, and wire.
2. Star off by knotting the tail end of your yarn to your embroidery hoop.
3. Wrap the yarn around the embroidery hoop, covering the tail end as you work your way around the hoop.
4. Continue wrapping yarn around your hoop until it is completely covered.
5. Loop some yarn through your first key, and pull the tail ends through the loop you created, catching the key in the loop. Tie this first key strand to your embroidery hoop.
6. Continue with more keys, equally spacing them out. I used the silver/white keys for the shorter tier of my chandelier.
7. Continue adding keys to your hoop until you are satisfied. I did alternating lengths for my keys.
8. With the tail ends of each of the key strands, I tied them to their nearest neighbor. I tied my pearl strands to these yarn loops. Trim the tail ends if you wish, but I left mine long in case I decide to add more beads in the future.
9. Cut out 9 pieces of yarn that are all the same length. Place them in groups of three, fold them in half and loop them around the embroidery hoop.
10. Braid each of these yarn groups and knot the ends. (If you want a more secure chandelier, you can use the wire as your hanging mechanism instead of yarn.)
11. Bring your three braids ends together and secure them by wrapping wire around them.
12. I created a small wire loop and attached this to my wire wrapping to be used as a hanging point. Add more materials to your chandelier if you want it more complex, hang, and enjoy!
Happy Crafting!
