Fidget Pendant

One thing I notice when wearing necklaces is that I'm pretty much constantly fidgeting with it. With that thought in mind, what better to do than actually make a fidget pendant! I had initially planned to make this with three circles, but halfway through the project I changed my sketches and went for a bit of a different look. It's a bit more of a minimalistic look, with small colour accents given by the beads.

To see the pendant in action, be sure to scroll down to the last step!

Step 1: Materials and Tools

- wire / I used silver plated copper wire of 1 mm and 0,5 mm (e.g. here and here)
- chain / the length depends on how long you want your necklace to be
- a clasp
- two jump rings / one to add the clasp to the chain and another for the other side of the chain
- six small beads / more about picking the right ones later on
- a mandrel / circular objects can work just as well
- pliers

Step 2: Bending Circles

Take your mandrel and bend the 1 mm wire around the top part, I used the part that's equal to a size three ring. Cut it off to close the circle and repeat this two more times to create three circles.

Step 3: One Whole Makes Two Halves

From your three circles, choose one to use for the middle layer of the circle - this layer will consist of two halves with a bit of space in between instead of a full circle. Try to use the one that's the least round of the three. After cutting it in half, snip off a bit of the ends as well to create enough room to have free space in between for the middle wire to pass through.

Step 4: Turning Three Circles Into One

Take the two circles and one of the halves and hold them together in the right order. To make it easier to wrap the thinner wire around them, start by aligning the middle of the semicircle with the middle parts of the complete circles.

Cut off a piece of the thinner wire and wrap it around all three layers, making sure to keep them next to each other as good as possible. After having wrapped enough to not have the layers shifting around, carefully the end of one of the complete circles into the already wrapped part to hide the ends.

Step 5: Halfway There

To end the first part, cut off the wire and bend the end between the layers.

Step 6: Two Halves Make a Whole Again

Repeat the same steps for the other half of the circle. When you're done, be sure to check if a piece of wire can be put through the middle.

Step 7: Time for Another Circle

For the second circle, you can pretty much completely follow the steps used for the first circle! As far as sizing goes, I made this one at the size 14 part on the mandrel.

Step 8: And Basically Repeating Yourself

Cutting three circles, splitting one of them in half, wrapping the first half together, wrapping the second half together! The only thing I found a bit trickier is getting the ends hidden in the wire wrapped part, mainly because I had already wrapped quite a bit when realising I still had to do that.

Step 9: Choosing Beads

You'll want to use beads that can fit between the two circles as shown. The size of the other four doesn't really matter, I personally just liked using the same kind of bead six times.

Step 10: Putting It All Together

Cut off a piece of the 1 mm wire, long enough to easily fit through the entire pendant and still leave you with enough extra material. Straighten it out completely.

Start by putting it through one of the holes in the outer circle. After that, add the first bead, followed by going through both holes in the middle circle. Add a second bead before going through the outer circle again. Push it through a bit further to let the circles sit in the middle of the wire. Add bead number three and four to both ends.

Step 11: Adding the Chain

Take the chain and put the loops on both ends of the wire as well, before adding your final two beads to lock the chain in its place. Use a pair of flat nose pliers to bend up the wire after the outer beads and end it by bending it against the beads.

After taking the pictures, I noticed there was a sharp corner on one of the ends of the wires after this step, which can easily be fixed by taking a small file and carefully filing away any sharp bits.

Step 12: Finding Closure

Look for the middle of the chain, open it up and add a jump ring to both sides. Add the clasp to one of the jump rings as well.

Step 13: The Final Result