Natural Wood Statement Necklace

 In case you missed my guest post over at The CSI Project a couple of weeks ago during Accessories Week, here it is again!


We'll be making a Natural Wood Statement Necklace!

To make this necklace you will only need a handful of supplies:

Small branches of varying diameters
Dremel or some other tool to cut the wood
Backing for your necklace
Clear spray paint
Adhesive
Chain

I received this bad boy for Christmas! I've been itching to use it. My first real power tool to be added to my craft supply. Too much fun!

I started out by gathering a few different branches from around the yard. I wanted to be sure I chose ones that weren't exactly the same so I would have some contrast later when putting the necklace together. I put the branches in my potting shed a week before I planned to do the project so they would be nice and dry when I was ready for them.

I used a cutting tool on my Dremel to cut the branches into disks of varying thickness.

Unfortunately I didn't have quite the right cutting attachment (it wasn't meant to cut wood) so it left all of my disks with burn marks. No worries! I had another attachment for the Dremel that sanded those burn marks right off.

You can see in the bottom right photo above the huge difference sanding the disks made!

The varying heights of the disks give a great 3-dimensional effect when layed out!

You have options for the next step. Choose the type of media you want to use behind your necklace. I tried laying the wood disks out on a piece of brown felt and a piece of transparency. I preferred the look of the transparency and seeing the space between the disks. It keeps everything looking more natural!

For my transparency, I used a piece of adhesive-backed film that I found at Hobby Lobby (use a 40% off coupon!). I cut a piece of the transparency that would fit the layout I had designed for the necklace.

Peel off the white backing of the transparency exposing the adhesive and start laying out your disks in the pattern you want for your necklace.

Once all of your disks are on the transparency, trim the edges with a pair of scissors (above photo with arrow on the left). Go back and further trim the transparency with an X-acto knife (above photo with arrow on the right). You don't want to see any of the transparency peaking out around the edges of the outer disks.

You can now pick up the disks as one big piece thanks to the adhesive on the transparency sheet!

(Note: If you decide to go the route of using the felt backing, simply use some adhesive such as Beacon's 3-in-1 or a hot glue gun to attach the disks to the felt.)

To prevent the wood disks from getting scratched or possibly falling apart in the future I gave them 3 good coats of Krylon Gloss clear spray paint.

The clear paint gives the wood just a bit of shine.

Add some adhesive (I used Beacon's 3-in-1) to each top corner wood disk to attach your chain.

Adjust your chain length to your styling, and add a necklace clasp as you would any other necklace.

I love the natural look of this necklace! And to think its upcycled from things around your yard you would normally just put into a brush pile makes it even better.


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