Nothing on this page needs a torch, a kiln or a bench pin. That is the thing about DIY necklaces: almost all of them come down to four skills, and once you own those four, the whole page opens up. You can bend a loop in wire with round nose pliers. You can open and close a jump ring. You can string beads on a length of thread and knot the end. You can wrap a raw stone until it stays put. Everything in these 17 projects is those moves in a different order, from a seed bead strand that costs about two dollars fifty to a quilled paper heart, a fabric covered chain and a cluster of pearls on a toggle clasp. Start with whatever is already in the house.
1. Simple DIY Macrame Necklace
Square knots, one after another, worked around a small metal ring that started life as a copper keyring. That is the entire structure. Cut six thirty six inch lengths of cord, which sounds absurd until the first row of knots eats half of it, then hang the finished fringe from a length of chain closed with two jump rings and a lobster clasp. Cotton twine gives a crisp white fringe and hemp cord gives a softer, warmer one. If you want beads in the weaving, buy them to suit your cord, because anything with a wider hole slides straight back off.
Get the full tutorial at Lia Griffith.
2. DIY Wood Copper Necklace
Copper beads cut from plumbing pipe, which is the part of this that feels like cheating. Buy half inch copper tubing and a tube cutter from the hardware aisle, rotate the cutter around the pipe about ten times while tightening it, and you have a bead nobody will recognise. Wooden beads from three eighths of an inch up to an inch and a half carry the rest, some of them dotted with black paint on a fine tipped brush. String everything on a one millimetre leather or hemp cord, pass both ends through a small bead at the top, and finish with one overhand knot.
Get the full tutorial at See Kate Sew.
3. DIY Wire Wrapped Stone Necklace
Raw, unset stones held by nothing but wire, and the loop is made before the stone is ever touched. Form a small loop with round nose pliers, leave about an inch of tail, wrap that tail around the base of the loop and trim it. Then sit the loop at the top of your stone and start wrapping, keeping the wire on the spool the whole time so you are not fighting a cut length. Wrap the base once more to finish, trim, and thread your chain through. Long, skinny stones behave best. A drop of strong glue underneath settles any worry about slipping.
Get the full tutorial at Alice and Lois.
4. Ocean Style Chain Link Necklace with Crystal Beads
Three chains at once, cut to ten, twelve and fourteen centimetres so they hang one below the other rather than sitting on top of each other. The beaded length above them is built on about sixteen inches of tiger wire, closed at each end with a crimp bead squeezed flat, with Tibetan style metal beads and eight millimetre Czech glass alternating all the way along. The drops are separate: each glass teardrop and six millimetre pearl goes on its own eyepin with a loop turned at the end, then the links join alternately and hook onto the strand. A toggle closes it.
Get the full tutorial at LC Pandahall.
5. DIY Seed Bead Necklace
A single long strand with a block of colour in it, and the whole thing costs about two dollars fifty. Cut thirty three inches of no-stretch nylon beading thread and knot one end, leaving an inch and a half spare so you have something to tie into later. Thread a collapsible eye needle, then run it through a shallow bowl of gold seed beads rather than picking them up one by one, which is the tip that saves the afternoon. Add the larger coloured beads where you want the block to fall, tie a double knot and seal it with a dot of craft glue.
Get the full tutorial at Alice and Lois.
6. DIY Pearl Cluster Necklace
Eight pearls hanging in pairs off a short stub of chain, which is a far better idea than it sounds. Cut twenty inches of chain and put half a toggle clasp on each end with jump rings. Then cut a second piece only six links long, about three quarters of an inch, and hang it from the clasp. Every pearl goes on its own ball pin with a loop turned at the top, and the pairs attach by jump ring to the bottom link, the third link up, the second from the top and the top link. Mixed sizes between six and ten millimetres keep it from looking regimented.
Get the full tutorial at Adventures of a DIY Mom.
7. Anthropologie Inspired Shepherd Moon Necklace
A cascade of plain metal rings in mixed sizes, linked into two rows and hung on chain, with a handful of beads set inside some of the rings on eye pins. The measurements are the thing to hold onto: the top row should come to about ten inches across when pulled straight and the lower row about thirteen, and that difference is what makes it drape instead of sag. Rings that come with an opening can be worked like giant jump rings. Solid ones need cutting. Sixteen inches of chain cut in half gives you the two sides, and the whole piece takes about ninety minutes.
Get the full tutorial at Flamingo Toes.
8. DIY Wine Cork Necklace
A cork, drilled or wrapped, worn on a cord. It is the kind of project that exists because the raw material keeps arriving whether you want it or not, and cork takes surprisingly well to jewellery: it is light enough to hang all day, it holds a wire wrap without crushing if you go gently, and a bottle cap or a few beads hanging below it turn one cork into something with a shape. Turned on its side rather than hung upright it reads as a choker bar instead of a pendant.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
9. Triple Strand Crystal + Pewter DIY Necklace
Three strands of crystal and pewter that hang off a pair of triangular connectors, one above the other, so you get the coverage of a bib without the weight of one. That is genuinely hard to pull off and it is why this piece keeps turning up on boards years after it was posted. It suits anyone who already makes beaded connectors or wants a reason to learn, it reads as dressy or casual depending on what you put it over, and the colour choice is entirely yours. Under an hour on the bench, according to the maker.
Get the full tutorial at Happy Hour Projects.
10. Easy DIY Necklace With Freshwater Pearl Pendant
Three large jump rings woven into a mobius spiral, with one small freshwater pearl swinging inside it. The spiral is the skill worth learning here because it turns up in bracelets and earrings too, and it needs sixteen gauge rings of nine and a half millimetres to hold its shape. The pearl goes on a headpin with a loop turned above it, then a three and a half millimetre ring joins pearl to spiral, and two tiny two point two millimetre rings finish each end of the chain. Seventeen and a half inches of fine cable chain gives an eighteen inch necklace.
Get the full tutorial at Linkouture.
11. DIY Ombre Seed Bead Necklace
Six strands of seed beads, each one graded a little darker than the last, and each one cut about an inch longer than the one above it so they nest instead of fighting. Twenty inches of stringing wire makes the first. Thread a crimp bead, then a jump ring, loop the wire back through the crimp and squeeze it shut with needle nose pliers before any bead goes on. Finish the far end the same way. A three inch length of chain and a lobster claw make it adjustable. Set aside about three hours, because this is slow rather than difficult.
Get the full tutorial at Howe We Live.
12. DIY Crochet Bib Necklace
A ready-made crochet lace appliqué, spray painted a colour it was never sold in, with a chain and a clasp added at the shoulders. It is close to no work and it does not look it, which is a rare combination. Neon yellow over black lace is the version that turns heads, and seafoam over cream is the one you will actually wear twice a week. Fabric dye does the same job more gently if you want the lace to stay soft. Paint does stiffen it a little, but only enough to hold the shape at the collarbone rather than flop.
Get the full tutorial at In Honor of Design.
13. Quilled Heart Necklace
A paper pendant, which sounds fragile until you handle one. The outline is three eight inch strips of silver edged quilling paper glued into a single stack, and it must dry overnight or the layers peel apart the moment you bend them. Fold the dried stack off centre, roll each end around a tool handle, pinch the point and curve it. Two shaped teardrops rolled from a twelve inch strip fill the middle. One package of quilling paper makes five or six pendants, and a satin varnish gives the finished piece some water resistance if you live somewhere humid.
Get the full tutorial at All Things Paper.
14. Ribbon Wrap Chain Necklace
A wide flat curb chain with fabric woven through the links, so the metal shows in slivers and the fabric does the colour. The centre section is the only part that gets covered, and it takes two separate strips rather than one, threaded along the top edge and the bottom edge of the chain so the weave stays even. Cut the chain to the finished length before any fabric goes near it, because unpicking a covered section is worse than starting again. A printed cotton in small scale works better than a large print, which gets chopped into meaningless fragments.
Get the full tutorial at Facilisimo Manualidades.
15. Mixed Metal Filigree Ball Necklace
A column of mixed metal filigree spheres over a fringe of chain, and the fringe is eight to ten lengths of cable chain cut to five inches each. Thread the middle of four of them onto an opened eye pin, hang two more from a jump ring, stack two more on top, then connect the jump ring into the eye and close it. A filigree bead cap goes on next, then the spheres in bronze, gold and silver with a faceted crystal among them, and a turned loop at the top. Thirty inches of chain, closed with a jump ring rather than a clasp, slides straight over your head.
Get the full tutorial at Infarrantly Creative.
16. DIY Fabric Braided Necklace
A fat braided rope of printed cotton that fastens with a covered button, made from a two inch wide strip about two point two yards long. Sew the strip into a tube, turn it out, then feed thirty strand yarn down the inside, which is what gives the braid its body instead of leaving a flat empty sleeve. Mark nine point eight inches in from each end, divide the middle into three and braid between the marks. The closure is a button padded with filler and covered in a fabric scrap, caught into a loop at the other end.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
17. Beautiful Liberty Fabric Beads Necklace DIY
Old wooden beads you have gone off, wrapped in printed cotton so they become something else entirely. Measure with a paper strip wrapped round one bead first, and use that strip to mark the fabric so every wrap comes out the same. The strip is folded, marked, sewn along the line, trimmed a quarter inch away and turned out, then beads and small metal coils go in alternately from both ends so the weight stays balanced. It takes about twenty beads and a strip of printed cotton three and a half inches wide by forty three inches long.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
