DIY Silhouette Necklace

I'm so excited to be participating in Kelly's Mother's Day Handmade {love} Series!  I'm the third project out of ten coming your way!  Yesterday Jamie at Roubinek Reality shared a really sweet DIY Ruffled Kitchen Towel.  She has awesome and easy to follow instructions - go check her project out!!

So today I'm going to share a fun and easy Mother's day gift idea - a sweet little silhouette necklace.  I'm all about a silhouette - I love the vintage charm.  I wanted to come up with something that anyone could do and uses easy to find materials.  This really is easy, I promise!  Ok, let's get started!

Supplies I used:

- Balsa Wood Shapes

- Craft Paint

- Pencil

-Silhouette Stencil

- Sharpie Markers

- Small Nail (for making a hole to hang)

- Jump Rings

-Jewelry Chain

Jewelry Clasps

-Diamond Glaze or some other finish

The first thing you need to do is paint your Balsa wood shapes with craft paint - simple.  Balsa wood is a soft wood and its found in most craft stores.  I found the pre-cut shapes at Michaels.  I decided to use two circles and to add a little heart for an accent.  

  

After your paint is dry its time to trace your silhouette onto your pendant.  I simply found a profile of my son on my computer and shrank the size down to fit and printed it out.  Then, I cut out the silhouette to make a template and traced around the template with a pencil onto my pendant.  Next, I simply used a black sharpie to trace around the pencil.  *Here's a tip - a fine tip sharpie will work even better for outlining your silhouette.  After you have your outline use the regular tip sharpie for filling in.  I ended up filling in a couple of coats to get it dark and as even as possible.

Now you need to make your hole so you can use this as a pendant for your necklace.  You can either drill a hole or use a small nail and lightly tap it into the wood.  Its super soft wood so it doesn't take much to make a hole.  

After that, the next part is sealing and finishing it all off.  I decided to use diamond glaze- since I had it on hand and I like the glossy, hard finish it gives...Oh, also it dries super fast.  You could totally use a glossy modge podge or even a clear coat spray paint sealer - just use what you have.  

After your finish coat is all dry the last part is just assembling your necklace together.  I used a couple of jumprings to attach my pendants onto my chain.  Round nose pliers work great for opening and closing the jumprings.  Don't let this part intimidate you if you have never made jewelry - its so easy!  Jumprings can also be found at any craft store - even at Walmart.

And finally, you have a cute little silhouette necklace, ready for gift giving.  Mine came together pretty quickly.  I had a few minutes here and there to paint, cut, trace, gloss, etc.  Don't let handmade projects seem time consuming - usually I'm doing one little step at a time throughout the day when I work on a project like this instead of trying to carve out a chunk of time.  It works for me!

Thanks so much for joining me today!!  Tomorrow Jaime at Raising Up Rubies, will be sharing another great handmade mother's day gift idea so make sure to check it out, I can't wait!!  

Have a great day!