DIY 3 Toned Key Necklace

Well, life has been crazy busy. My poor Olympus DSLR bit the dust last month. I replaced it with a Canon T3 which has been amazingly awesome. At the end of July, we moved to a new apartment.

I may be doing a post on cute decorating ideas I find around the internet since I'm going to be putting some time and energy into decorating our new place.

Like it but don't wanna make it?? Buy it HERE. (Please message me through Etsy if the item is sold out and you would like one).

As for now, a tutorial on how to make this necklace:

Materials:

- Three key pendants in different metal tones
- Four to five jump rings
- A small metal ring
- Approximately 20 to 26 inches of chain (depending on your preferred length)
- A clasp set
- A pair of chain nose pliers (two sets of pliers if possible but one will work too)

Here are the keys I found. They came in a package at 

Michael's like the one shown below.

I used about 20 inches of chain for my necklace. 

It was a medium thick chain:

Directions:

Step One: Open a jump ring using pliers. If you have two sets of pliers, look here. If you only have one, put the tip of the pliers into the center of the ring and open carefully. You only want to open them enough to allow the key and the metal ring to slip on to it. 

Step Two: close jump ring around key and metal ring. If you have one set of pliers, just push the ring back together so the gap closes. If you have two pliers, refer to the link above.

Step Three: Repeat with all other keys until all three are on the metal ring.

Step Four: Find the middle point in the chain and lay the chain out so that there is equal length on both sides and the middle forms a U. Pull middle through metal ring:

Step Five: Take the loose ends of the chain and pull them through the U. Make sure you pull them through so that there is still equal length on both sides. No lop sided necklaces! =)

It should look something like this:

Step Six: Attach Clasp. How you do this will depend on the clasp you choose. I had to use a jump ring to secure half of it. The actual clasp itself had a sort of built in jump ring that worked great. See below how I did mine:

Opened with pliers:

And shut with pliers:

The other part of the clasp, I attached with a jump ring. Just use instructions above on how to open and close jump rings to do that part.

And here it is with a clasp attached to it:

Okay, now go out wearing it and gather some compliments. Nothing feels better than people asking you where you got your necklace than when you can answer "I made it!"

I also made this one with slightly larger keys and a longer chain:

 Like it but don't wanna make it?? Buy it HERE. (Please message me through Etsy if the item is sold out and you would like one).

DIY Tutorial: Chandelier Crystal Earrings

Love them but don't want to make them? Click here to buy them at my Etsy shop.

I have A LOT of jewelry supplies lying around. Since I am trying to save money, I'm going to go ahead and use the things I already have to do tutorials with. Jewelry tutorials are the easiest for me to make since I have been making jewelry for almost 10 years now. Plus, it's pretty AND you get to wear it while having the satisfaction of knowing you made it yourself (which is especially awesome when you get compliments on it!).

I wanted to do a pair of chandeliers for this post for a few reasons. The first is that it is not much more difficult than some of the other earrings I have done tutorials for on this site. (Check out: Christmas Tree Earrings to see what I mean). It's essentially the same thing really. It just takes longer and you have to repeat steps multiple times.

I chose to do my earrings with Swarovski crystal. Swarovski beads are pretty expensive though, so if you don't already have some on hand, you can use pretty much any bead as long as they will fit nicely in the frames you choose. You can also pick any frames you like. There are usually a few different types at craft stores.

Materials:

- A pair of chain nose pliers

- A pair of round nose pliers

- A pair of cutters

- 2 Chandelier frames

- Headpins (one for each loop on your chandelier frames)

- Beads (I used 4mm, 5mm, and 6mm Swarovski crystal but you can choose whatever you want as long as they are small enough to fit in the frames).

- 2 Earring wires

Directions:

Step 1: Place beads you want for the center of your chandelier on an headpin. Grab the end of the head pin (the end with no head) and bend it at the top of the beads. Be careful not to do it too aggressively, or the top crystal may crack. You will want to make sure that there is room for the headpin and the beads in the middle of your chandelier. If the headpin is too long, or the beads are too large, the piece will not dangle correctly.

Step 2: Next, take the round nose pliers and grab the head pin at the top of the beads. Make sure it is as close to the beads as possible without actually touching the top bead. Grab the end of the head pin and bend it around the looping pliers, pulling to make a round shape with the wire.

Step 3: Next, cut off the excess wire leaving some room to complete the rest of the loop.

Step 4: Finally, use the chain nose pliers to bend the wire into a complete loop. I find it easiest to push up at the same time as bending to make a nice even loop. This step can be difficult if you've never made jewelry before, so you may want to practice on some empty head pins before trying it. Okay, so now push the loop closed. This piece is finished.

Step 5: Repeat this process with all other dangling pieces. How many beads you put on which loop in the chandelier frames is entirely up to you. I decided to keep it simple and put two larger beads for the middle piece and one small bead on each bottom loop (see photos). You can be creative and put as many as you'd like for each loop. Just make sure they will dangle correctly and not get stuck when they hang. Attach pieces as you make them by opening the loop you made on the headpins and closing them around the loops on the chandelier frames using a pair of chain nose pliers.

Step 6: Once all your pieces are on the frames, open the earring wires and slip the frames onto them. Close them with the chain nose pliers.

You're done!

Love them but don't want to make them? Click here to buy them at my Etsy shop.

Balcony Container Garden

I shop for groceries 3-4 times a week. I like to buy the freshest meat and produce and that requires going to the store frequently. Day after day, I am faced with the choice to buy the pricier organic or the pesticide laden conventional produce. Living on a budget is hard, especially when it's important to you to eat clean, organic food.

To solve this problem, I decided to plant my own garden. I live in an apartment with a long narrow balcony. I started to research how to make a container garden. It's simple really and the materials I used, while unconventional, seem to be working out great.

I used 3 rubbermaid type tubs along with other pots to plant my garden. The most important thing when using any type of container is drainage. Your plants need moist soil but their roots can't be sitting in water for a long period or they will rot. I cut triangular holes in the bottom of my rubbermaid containers. To get the holes started, I used a nail heated with a lighter and then pounded into the bottom of the container with a hammer. It wasn't the simplest way to do it but it did work with the limited materials I already had. Once the nail had penetrated the container, I used a sharp knife to cut the triangular holes. They were about 1/2 - 3/4 inches wide.

I layered lava rock across the bottom of each container. I tried to stick to the larger rocks with a diameter of around 1-2 inches. I then topped the rocks with coffee filters before pouring organic soil on top. I also mixed in a little organic fertilizer into the top 2-3 inches of soil.

Currently, I have strawberry plants (which are already producing fruit), a cherry tomato plant, cucumber plant, multiple types of lettuce, basil, mint, chives, and onions. The things that seem to be taking the longest to grow are the lettuces. The tomato plant is starting to bud and has shot up nearly a foot since I planted it three weeks ago! It's all going really well, and that's saying a lot for a self proclaimed plant killer. I guess I just never took the time to really research how to properly garden.

During research, I found that these were the most important things to consider:

1) Drainage! You're plants will die if their roots sit in water for too long. They will start to rot. Drainage is not just about making holes at the bottom of the planter, it's also about making sure the holes don't get clogged with soil and that containers are off the ground where they can't drain properly. I have my large containers on bricks so that the water doesn't build up underneath.

2) Amount of sunlight. Make sure when buying plants to check how much light they need and how much light the area you want to put them in gets. All the plants I chose were full sunlight since my balcony gets light all day long.

3) Use potting soil! You need soil specifically for potting. If you get regular soil for planting in the ground, you won't be getting enough nutrients to have a thriving container garden.

4) Use fertilizer. I found organic fertilizer/plant food at Wal Mart.

5) Do your own research! This post is just to give you an idea of how to go about container gardening. Trust me when I say, I am not an expert at this... in fact, this is my first thriving garden ever.

For some reason, these pictures came out extremely bright although it didn't appear so on my camera's screen. These are just a few photos of when I first planted the garden and then a few more of the garden after 3 weeks. There were a few lettuce plants that were a little wilted in some photos but I'd like to report that they are all doing fine now.

Arugula- week 1

Arugula- week 3

Strawberries - Week 1

Strawberries - Week 3

Lettuce - Week 1

Lettuce - week 3

Basil - week 1

Basil - week 3

Tomato - week 1

Tomato - week 3

Chives - week 1

Chives - week 3

Cucumber - week 1

Cucumber - week 3

Overall - week 1

Overall - Week 3

UPDATE: It is now week four and a half and some of my plants are ready to eat! The arugula is more than ready.

This morning, I went outside a took a close look at the leaves of my lettuce and what did I find? Only hundreds of aphids!!! Hurdle number one is here and I'm going to do my best to correct the problem. I'll update in a few days.