Upcycled Drinking Straw Jewelry: Tiny Leaves Of Green

Today, a fun tutorial for you.  Please to peep these itty bitty earrings, which are just an inch long:

Cute, no?  Here's a yellow pair.

The flowers are pressed glass; the stems are your basic seed beads.  Now for the cool upcycled bit: those darling tiny leaves.  Yep, you may have already guessed.

A green plastic straw from the Starbucks!  Just the latest in my series of ideas for upcycling these dastardly iced drink cups - which have an unfortunate tendency to collect in my car, my trash and my life.  (Click here to check out some of the other projects.)

So here's the DIY.

Cut a thin slice of straw.  Smash it flat and poke a hole in the middle.  Hey presto!  The double-leaf shape forms automatically!

On a long headpin, thread a pretty bead for the flower.  Then intersperse the leaves with seed beads, like so:

Cinch everything up tight, and create a wrapped loop at the top.  First make a complete circle of wire:

Then use flat pliers (called chain-nose pliers) to make a couple of wire wraps beneath the loop.

Snip off the excess wire.  If there's a sharp bit poking out, carefully tuck it in with the chain-nose pliers.

That's your flower stem done!  If you have two ears, make a second one.  Then just add earwires, and that's all she wrote.

I sure hope you liked this one.  I have a couple more drinking straw ideas, hope to share them in a bit.  Later, dearies!