How to Create a Personalized Pendant

For Ellie’s first Birthday party, we went with a Jelly Bean theme, which for decorations means lots of bright colors.  I wanted to make her a personalized pendant with a cutesy saying as well as the classic “Happy Birthday.”  This was fairly easy to do with the right tools.

I used the following:

• A paper cutter
• Brightly colored cardstock
• A paint pen
• A ruler
• A pencil
• Rotary cutter
• Fabric
• Cutting board
• Cutting mat

I did two different sized pendants: A smaller one with “Jelly Bean Birthday Queen” and a larger one with “Happy Birthday.”

For the smaller pendants, I first cut six-inch strips of colorful paper.  I then marked the strips along the longer sides every two inches.

Using my paper cutter, I cut a straight line from the bottom corner of the paper to the first two-inch mark on the top side.

From that point, I cut to the four-inch mark on the bottom and repeat.

Once I had my pendants cut, I marked the middle of each pendant at one inch and four inches from the top of the pendant.  This will give you equally sized letters, for the most part.  You can erase the pencil marks after you have lettered.

I then used my paint pen to letter.  I simply drew a letter, thickened it up, and then drew triangles on the ends.

I did these same steps for the larger pendants, but I cut an eight-inch strip and marked every three inches.

Now for the fabric strand.  I cut one-inch strips of fabric, eight inches long for each of the smaller pendants, and ten inches long for each of the larger pendants; this leaves enough room to tie each fabric strip to the next one on the ends.

In order to make the “Jelly Bean Birthday Queen” row the same length, I tied a four-inch strip on each end of “Birthday” and a ten-inch strip on each end of “Queen.”  I then tied the strips together with the appropriate number of strips per pendant and hot glued the paper pendants onto the fabric strips.  If you don’t want to go through all this hassle, then you could just glue them to a string or a long piece of ribbon.  There you have it: a beautiful personalized pendant!!

Here is a formula for the length of strips for your pendant size: top pendant length + 4 inches.  Two inches on either side was enough room for me to tie a knot, but if you want longer stands on the ends of your knots or more playing room, then add more than four inches to your pendant length.  Here is a formula for excess fabric strips needed should you desire your rows to be the same length: count of longest phrase (for mine, “Jelly Bean” was 9 pendants) – count of next phrase (for mine, “Birthday” was 8 pendants and “Queen” was 4) = number of pendant lengths needed (mine were: one 9-8=1 and four 9-5=4).  Then, multiply the number of pendant lengths needed by pendant length + 4 inches then divide by two (mine were 1*4=4+4=8/2=4, so I needed 2 four-inch strips for the ends of “Birthday” and 4*4=16+4=20/2=10, so I needed 2 ten-inch strips for “Queen.”)  I know, I know, a lot of math for a cutesy pendant!!  What do you expect?  I was a math teacher!!