Hear a little jingle in every step you take with these cute and easy jingle bell cluster earrings. They only take a few minutes to create and are a great project even if you aren’t experienced in jewelry making.
A few years ago I bought a few assorted packages of jingle bells. At the time I didn’t have any particular plans for them. It was more of an “Oh, those are cute, let’s buy them now and figure out what to do with them later” kind of thing. I have a tendency to do that a lot.
So they sat around like many other things in my craft stash. Last year I used some of them when I made my Jingle Bell Shadow Box tutorial, but still had some left over.
In that tutorial I mentioned that I wanted to use some of the bells to make a pair of earrings. But last year I just didn’t have the time to bother with it. So this year I decided to finally get it done.
I have several different colors of jingle bells, but decided to go with blue and silver for my main project. It seems I have a bit of a preference for those colors in my Christmas decorations because I can’t seem to stop picking them for my projects, like in my previous article where I made a Ribbon Christmas Tree out of sparkly blue and silver ribbons.
Now that I think about it, one of my Seashell Ornaments that I made last year was blue and silver as well. At least I know what I like! My holiday decorations are still a bit all over the place, but little by little maybe I can make everything match someday.
Anyway, these little earrings are a perfect new addition to my DIY holiday crafts that I’ve made. They were very quick and easy to make. So quick and easy that I can definitely see myself making more cluster earrings in the future.
What You Will Need to Make Jingle Bell Cluster Earrings
Note: This post may contain affiliate links, which means that if you click on a link and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. For more information, please see my Disclosure.
The size of your jump rings and jingle bells is up to you. Unfortunately, none of my packages had any measurements on them, so I don’t know the exact sizing of the supplies I used.
If I had to guess the rings look to be about 6mm. And the jingle bells seem to be about 8mm or so.
In total I needed 5 jump rings for each earring. So that means 10 in total.
For the jingle bells I used 9 on each earring. So in all I needed 18 bells for both earrings.
Also, as far as your jewelry pliers, you definitely don’t need to use the ones I have pictured. The one on the right is actually a pair of round nose pliers that’s used to make jewelry loops. But I find it easiest to open jump rings using one pair of pliers in each hand, so I use them for that purpose as well.
As long as your pliers can hold onto the jump ring and won’t mess up the metal you can use whatever ones you like. In many cases you can also use one pair of pliers and your bare hand to open and close jump rings. And if you don’t want to use pliers there are even special tools made for opening jump rings too.
How to Make Jingle Bell Cluster Earrings
Step 1: Make First Loop
Start by picking the jingle bell you want to be at the bottom of the cluster. If your jingle bells are all the same color it won’t matter. But because I’m using two colors I needed to pick one. So I decided to start with the blue.
Then open up one of your jump rings and slide the bell on. Close the jump ring to create your first layer.
The nice thing about jingle bells is they have a little loop on top already. At least, every jingle bell I’ve ever seen has them.
This little loop is helpful because you don’t need to worry about making one yourself. When using beads in a cluster earring, you need to turn it into a charm with a loop first. So it’s always nice when you can skip a step.
Just in case there is anyone reading who is new to jewelry making I wanted to mention something about the jump rings. When opening and closing them you shouldn’t just pull them open. That can weaken the metal and it’s much harder to close them that way too.
Instead, while holding the jump ring, you need to almost “twist” it open. So one end will go toward you and the other will go away from you. To close, just twist it in the opposite direction until the ends meet.
Step 2: Add Second Loop
Now let’s move on to the next layer. Grab another jump ring and two jingle bells.
Open up the jump ring and add the ring you attached the bell to in Step 1. Then add a bell to each side of the second ring.
Close up your jump ring. Later two is now complete.
Again, the colors of the bells you choose will depend on what colors you’re using and how you want your end result to look.
For mine I wanted the colors to be evenly mixed around the earring. So on layer two I used one of each color. But do whatever is right for you.
Step 3: Add Additional Loops
At this point you should have three remaining jump rings. Keep repeating the previous step of adding a jump ring with two bells until you have used them all.
I tried my best to alternate the colors as I went along. But don’t stress about this too much. If something doesn’t look the way you want, it’s very easy to open the jump rings back up and move things around.
Here’s what mine looked like after all my layers were completed:
If you want your earrings to be longer you can keep adding more jump rings and bells for every extra layer. You can make these earrings as long as you like, but I wanted mine to not be very long.
Step 4: Add Earring Hook
With the main part of the earring finished the last thing to do is add the earring hook.
This is easy enough. Just open up the loop on the earring hook and add it to your top jump ring in between the two bells. Open and close the loop on the earring hook the same way you did the jump rings.
You could also easily add the earring hook in Step 3 as well. Just add your hook in between the jingle bells before closing the jump ring.
I honestly forgot to do it so I added on this extra step. But sometimes you might want to add your hook separately.
If you are using multiple colors like I am, it’s worth noting that the front and back of the earring will look a bit different.
I like to take a look and decide what side I want to be facing forward before adding my earring hook. That prevents me from wasting time having to adjust it later.
But if you don’t like the side of your earrings that is facing forward it’s an easy fix. Just open up the loop on your hook and flip it around.
And with that, the first earring is finished! Halfway there!
Step 5: Repeat to Make Second Earring
Repeat steps 1 through 4 to get a second matching earring. This time I decided to use a silver bell at the bottom.
These cute little earrings are now ready to wear.
What I’ve noticed is the tiny jingle bells aren’t nearly as loud as the bigger ones. It’s more of a pleasant little tinkling sound.
So even with 18 bells (or more) on your ears, you don’t need to worry about being too loud. If you decide to use bigger bells for your earrings it might be a different story, though.
Jingle Bell Cluster Earring Variations
I had another package of jingle bells in some different colors so I decided to make myself a second pair. This time the bells were red, green, and gold.
Because of the bell colors these would look so much better with gold rings and hooks. But unfortunately silver is all I have. Maybe next time I can get out to one of the craft stores I’ll buy some proper gold findings.
So as you can see there’s all kinds of way you can mix and match colors for these earrings. And as I mentioned earlier you can keep adding layers to make them as long as you want.
My Final Thoughts on Jingle Bell Cluster Earrings
These little jingle bell cluster earrings are so easy to make that you can whip up a pair in just a few minutes. Make them for yourself or give them away to friends and family.
You can also play around with other size bells and rings. Every different combination will give you a bit of a different look. For example, using larger jump rings with the tiny bells will space things out a bit more.
Just don’t be afraid to play around until you find the look you like best. It’s so easy to fix any mistakes that you don’t need to worry about wasting any time or supplies.
I hope that you enjoyed this tutorial and found it helpful. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below. I’d love to hear from you! Thank you for stopping by and happy crafting!
If you liked this tutorial, don’t forget to pin it for later on Pinterest!
