Make A Fan Pull Chain With Beaded Bracelets

A ceiling fan is an economical and efficient way to keep a room cool. Dress up your fan or adapt it to your own taste by adding a custom-made chain for turning it on and off. If you have some old beaded bracelets lying around you can repurpose them into a fancy beaded pull chain for your fan.

Instructions

Make a Fan Pull Chain

1. Use jewelry wire cutters to cut the wire holding your beaded bracelets together. Remove the beads. Sort them into piles of similar color, size and shape.

2. Your pull chain can be anywhere from 6 inches to 12 inches. Use the proper length for your height or the height of others who will access it. Use a ruler to mark the length of your chain on a sheet of white paper.

3. Select the beads you wish to use for your pull chain. Line them up along the paper in the order you desire. You will need enough to fill the length you marked with your ruler.

4. Connect the wire to the clam-shell loop. Feed the wire into a crimping bead, and then feed it through the ring on the clasp. Bend the wire back around the ring and back through the crimping bead. Use the jewelry pliers to squeeze the crimping bead, locking everything together.

5. Attach a short length (about 1 ½ inches) of ball chain to the clam shell loop. Set the end ball into the clam and snap it shut. Feed the beads, in order, onto the wire attached to the clam loop from the other end.

6. When all the beads are on the wire, attach another clam shell loop to the other end of the wire. Insert the end of the wire with the beads on it into a crimping bead and then through the ring of the clam shell, then back through the crimping bead. Then squeeze the crimping bead and snip off the excess wire. Also, attach another short length of ball chain to the clam shell loop.

7. Slip a pull chain connector onto each of the balls at either end of your creation. Simply place the ball into the hole in the middle of the connector and slide it into the end of the connector. Now you can connect one end of your creation to the ceiling fan and the other to the chain pull.

Tags: crimping bead, clam shell, clam shell loop, pull chain, shell loop, attach another, back through