Hey all-
Don't know if this has been addressed before but I have just discovered wine glass charms...which now are a great hostess gift for all the holiday parties.

They turned out to be super easy (a bead and a wire hoop earing). Making them turned out to be about $1.00/ charm and I made 12 in less than an hour...so they are a pretty cheap and easy gift.

I will snap some pictures this evening, if any one is interested.

Beth

this is a great idea! I have seen some but would love to see your pictures! Thanks!
meli>http://melimade.fuzzyspaceoutpost.com

I'd love to see some pics too - thanks for reminding me about wine glass charms; I had planned to make some but somehow forgot about it...

Here's an old thread in case you need some more ideas: http://discuss.gromco.com/mwforum/topic_show.pl?id=7137

i had thought about making these too, but i didn't know where to pick up supplies. the only craft store i know about here (=sweden) is panduro. where will you be buying the charms, tea grrl?

I was going to do the earring hoop thingie but then thought that the wine-shlugging relatives I want to gift these to might let all the beads fall off while opening/shutting the hoop. I went to a small local bead shop (the big Michael's and Joann's stores did have what I wanted) and found that "memory" wire stuff - like you get for bracelets and the wire stays in the bracelet shape because it's made that way? Anyway - they had memory wire rings - like amini-slinky. I bought 6 of them and itlook slike I could prob make 5 or 6 wine charm thingies out of each "ring". I got a bag of assorted metalliz glass beads that has like 6-8 different colors of beads so I'll make 6-8 color-coded wine charms for a set. (I'm bending the ends in a swiry shape so the beads won't fall off.)

what works really well is useing memory wire in ring size.All you do is curl the end string on the beads and then curl the other end.viola

My mother said she'd like some of those, so my sister and I are planning on making her some for Christmas. We were going to use elastic...does anyone know if that'll work well? Also, where's a good place to get charms? We went to Michael's and Craft Warehouse, and neither place had anything suitable.

Here's a link to the ones I made as favours to my recent wedding. I personalised them with each person's intials>http://www231.pair.com/factotum/photos/temp/placecard2.JPG
cheers
--jo

Jo, that's gorgeous!

I just may make some for my mom. I've noticed that whenever we have company that drinks, she uses mismatched wine glasses to tell them apart, when we have a whole cabinet full of matching ones!

Right now, I'm working on homemade Christmas cards.

that is so cool!
although, i must admit i am a bit confused: why is the person's name Denny Cook and the initials S.H.?

OK-I made up a web page with the 2 sets I did. Thanks for the tip of the slinky wire stuff....I had never seen those. I used the metal earrings and made a little loop at the edge of the wire to hold the metal charm or bead.

check em out here...>http://homemade.sliceofchaos.com/winecharms.html

those are beautiful bizy beth. I love the beads and charms you used. I was real happy with the way mine turned out, but I wished I'd used a less labour intensive way of doing them. Mine are very sturdy, but they take longer to make
The next ones I make are going to be like yours, based on the earring hoop
cheers,
jo

jo and beth - awesome charms!

cloudberry - I was planning to either buy the ring memory wire or use elastic thread (both can be bought from Panduro - I'm not sure they have them in the shops in Stockholm but you can order from their catalogue) because I haven't found cheap earring hoops anywhere. I haven't found charms either (except for the elephant charms I happened to find at Tiimari) so I'm going to use different coloured beads. They might have charms at fabric/patchwork stores, and I've seen some on the net but they were really expensive. Also they have *some* hobby/craft stuff at Clas Ohlsson, so that might be worth checking out...
Edited to say: the site I was talking about is http://sy.kompaniet.com/apidae/browse?categoryid=002%2d12

thanks for the info, teagrrl!

just had to thank you for the awesome idea! I made a set with the memory wire and glass beads, (no charms cause I'm really cheap). Packaged them in a round lip balm tin. Excellent gift for my hard to shop for dad for $4.00!

Thanks from me too, I just made a couple sets last night (I used the memory wire) and they were quick, cheap, easy and great-looking. (Funny, when I was buying the beads the bead store lady looked at the assortment of similar but different colored beads and said "Wine glass thingies?" LOL) I'd seen them in stores and it never occured to me to make them, duh!

i made sets for my girlfriends for christmas. i used kidney wire, cab sets, 1/8th '' cabs, and made tiny collages recycling a crate and barrel catalog to go under the cabs. cost per charm - $0.30.