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Chinese Fortune Necklace


Here’s a good excuse to eat more Chinese food! The instructions that follow will create a 20 inch necklace, but you can adjust it to your favorite length by either changing the number of beads, or altering the length of chain used.

Materials and Tools

11 black wood beads, 30x12 mm twisted ovals (wood beads found at Michael's)
4 black wood beads, 8 mm round
16 red beads, 5 mm round
Colorful piece of decorative Asian paper
11 fortunes from Chinese fortune cookies
24 inches of red-coated SoftFlex beading wire, 0.019 inch diameter
2 crimps
2 inches of bronze colored chain
Bronze colored S hook with rings
Diamond Glaze or other clear drying adhesive


Small paint brush
Scissors
Wire cutters
Chain nose pliers
Measuring tape
Wire or pipe cleaner



1. Cut thin strips of decorative Asian paper and trim down the fortunes close to the printing. Hang your large oval beads on a wire and suspend them so that you can brush glue all around them.

2. Brush on a thin coating of Diamond Glaze and wrap the decorative strip around the bead, smoothing it into place. Brush some adhesive on the fortune, and wrap it over top of the paper strip.

3. Let the beads dry, and brush on another coat of Diamond Glaze. Add a third coat to seal in the papers well.

4. Cut a 24 inch piece of beading wire and string on your beads, alternating the decorative ovals with small round red beads. Alternate a few round red and black beads at each end to equal approximately a 17 inch strand.


5. Cut two pieces of chain to 1 inch each. Attach the beading wire ends to the pieces of chain by using crimps.  Bury the wire ends in the round beads and clip the ends close.


6. Add one of the rings that come with the S hook to each chain end. Slide on the S hook, and tighten down one of the arms around one of the rings.







Copyright 2010 Cyndi Lavin. Not to be reprinted, resold, or redistributed for profit. May be printed out for personal use or distributed electronically provided that entire file, including this notice, remains intact.


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Comments

This is a cool idea! My daughter is in to oriental decor. This is a technique that could be applied to a lot of crafty things.
I don't need an excuse to eat Chinese food. It's my fave. I'll start saving my fortunes right away.

What a wonderful idea!
Cyndi L said…
I had a whole pile of them saved, and so you might see some more pieces with fortunes included :-)