DIY Eyeglasses Chain Tutorial

Eyeglasses Chain, Glasses Holder, Lanyard

 This tutorial is about how to make a eyeglasses holder chain like in the picture above. It is for intermediate skilled jewelry makers and requires you to know how to make a basic wrapped loop. The finished lanyard measures 30-32 inches and takes about 20 minutes to make. You can use whatever beads you want; I used 8 mm glass foil beads. The finished lanyard can also be used for sunglasses.

9 Inch Chain, Eye pin, Eyeglass Holder Finding, Jump Ring, Beaded Link

 Step 1 is to gather your materials. You will need:
- 8 beads measuring 6-8 mm, your choice of style and materials
- 3 sections of chain measuring 9 inches each
- 10 medium jump rings
- 6 50 mm (2 inch) eye pins
- 2 eyeglass holder findings (the plastic finding with the silver clamp in middle)
- basic jewelry making pliers

Beaded Link

 Step 1: Make 6 beaded links on the eye pins, 4 with 1 bead each and 2 with 2 beads. Make them in matching pairs.

Step 2: Lay the 3 pieces of chain out in a "U" or necklace shape.

Step 3: Use the jump rings to connect your double beaded links to the bottom portion of chain on your "U". Connect one end of the double beaded link to each side of the chain.

Step 4: Use jump rings to connect the 2 extra pieces of chain to the side of the double beaded links that are not connected to anything. You will now have 3 pieces of chain, joined by 2 double beaded segments.

Step 4: Use jump rings to connect 2 single beaded segments to the end of each chain piece. On my first try, I did not use jump rings to connect each beaded segment to the other or the eyeglass finding ends, but I found that it was faster and easier with jump rings and got less tangling, so I recommend using 2 jump rings for this step. It should look like this: chain end - jump ring - bead segment -jump ring - bead segment. Do the same for each end.

Step 5: You should have one jump ring left over, use that to connect the end bead link on each side to the eyeglass holder findings.

Connecting The Lanyard To Eyeglasses

I purchased everything for this project at Michael's craft store, except the eyeglass holder findings. I was able to purchase these on Etsy (4.00 dollars for 20 pairs).