Homemade Wine Charms

    Homemade wine charms make a perfect gift!  These are great to give away for Mother's Day, Father's Day, or for a host/hostess gift.  What is wonderful about them is that you can make them unique for the person you are giving them to. Since these wine charms are made from shrink film, you can print any design you want on them from your computer printer.  If your mother loves birds, try printing out different species of birds, each for a wine charm.  Or maybe your father is a movie buff, then you can get creative and make each wine charm have a famous quote from a movie.  The project below shows you how to make the ones shown here, which include a festive phrase.  I include a PDF file for the template so you can print these right on to the shrink film. 

Things Needed:

• Shrink film for computer printers (I found some at my local craft store.  Office supply stores should have it too.  It is sold near the specialty papers for printers.  You can also buy it from www.CreateForLess.com)
• wine charm loops (Found in craft stores, usually near the jewelry and bead section)
• 18 gauge wire
• beads of choice (I used seed beads and 8 mM faceted beads)
• crimp tubes (I used 1.3 mM size)
• Jewelry round nose pliers
• Wire cutters
• Hole punch
• computer printer
• baking sheet
• scissors
• oven

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1. Begin your homemade wine charms by making your designs for the tags on your computer.  If you would like to use my template, which includes 9 festive phrases ("To Your Health", "I'll Have Another", "I'll Drink to That", "Love that Wine!", "Carpe Diem", "Bottoms Up", "Down the Hatch", "Cheers", "Lovin' Life!") then click here or on the image below.  A new window will open for the PDF file. Simply insert a sheet of the shrink film into your printer and print out the file.  If you are designing your own, keep in mind that the shrink film usually shrinks down to about 1/3 of the original size.


2.  Once your designs are printed, cut them out with scissors.  Then, punch a hole near the top of the charm with a hole punch.

3.  Place the charms on a baking sheet and bake according to the manufacturer's instructions.  It usually only takes about 1 minute for them to shrink, so watch closely.  The charms will curl up, and they are finished when they lay flat again.  Do not overcook or they could become discolored.  Remove them from the oven and allow them to cool.



4.  Next you need to create a large jump loop to connect the wine charm to the wine charm ring.  You can either purchase large enough jump loops, but I find it just as easy to make my own.  To do this, cut a small piece (about 1/2 inch) of 18 gauge wire, one for each wine charm.