Love to wear brooches? Hat ornaments? Unusual hair jewelry? Then, you’ll adore a fun project where you’re the designer of a gorgeous jewelry piece to wear any way you want. Just get some straight pins and a few inexpensive supplies, and you’ll quickly be able to make a brooch with an exquisite appearance.
Start by using a pin backing. The backing should be one that has a flat bar on one side, and the pin itself – with a rotating hinge – on the opposite side. In addition to the pin, you’ll need a disk or other small shape of Styrofoam. Glue the Styrofoam shape to the flat side of the pin, using hot glue or another adhesive.
Decide on something that will conceal the Styrofoam. It could be a lace applique, a felt shape, a large rhinestone, or a piece of fabric. Glue it on over the Styrofoam shape. The item you glue on can be the same size or larger than the Styrofoam piece.
Online, you can find a vast amount of colored-ball straight pins. Your local craft or fabric store might also sell a nice collection. Don’t see the colors you want? Spray paint the balls of white or other colors with paint made for plastic, a paint pen – or even nail polish. Or, leave the pin balls the colors that they are and use nail polish, or a paint pen, to make dots or other designs on them.
Create even more decorative pins yourself by gluing things onto plain straight pins, which have no balls on the ends. Glue on punched-out foil shapes, tiny rhinestones, little beads, or other things, to create the pins you want for the brooch or other jewelry piece.
The nicest pin can be made if you use more than one color, and if you use pins of different sizes, as well as pins with various sizes of balls on the ends. Keep in mind that, if needed, it’s easy to clip pieces of pins off, using wire snip, to make them shorter.
Begin pushing straight pins into the Styrofoam to create the exact design you want. The pins should go behind the applique or other embellishment. Push some pins in a little and some in far. Go around the Styrofoam shape, putting in more and more pins. Alternate colors, and sizes, to create a star, a star burst, a flower, or another shape. To make sure each pin stays in the Styrofoam, just poke it in, remove it, put a dot of hot glue on the pin, and stick it back in the hole.
Play around and make all sorts of brooches, using assorted pins, and various embellishments. You’ll love the finished jewelry pieces from you, the designer.