Faux Arrowhead Pendant

This is Instructable will show you how to make a low cost, trendy piece of jewelry. I've seen a lot of arrowhead jewelry lately and happened to notice once particular piece a coworker was wearing, all I could think was that it would look really cool with a bead on it and that's there the inspiration for this piece came from.

Lampwork bead

Metal blanks/sheets (16-20 gauge should be thick enough. I get most of my metal blanks from here and most recently, here.)

Pre-made rivets, wire

Rivet setter tool

Metal and rubber blocks

Metal snips, hole punch

File, buffing tools, polish

Texturing hammers

Safety precautions (gloves, eyewear)

Jewelry findings

First I sketched out an arrowhead shape on a piece of metal sheet. Then put it on the metal block (taping down often helps) and carefully give texture to the arrowhead with both sides of a ball peen/domed hammer. A domed hammer can give a nice authentic "chipped" look, particularly around the edges. Hammer gently and slowly.

Hammering first is what I would usually do, for some reason I decided to cut first. Make sure you use a quality pair of metal snips, mine came from Michaels and have been destroyed from cutting wire so they didn't cut as smooth as they should have.

When the piece is sufficiently textured, cut it out and using a metal hole punch, put a small hole into piece. I add the holes last so they don't become stretched from hammering. Then sand and buff the edges so there's nothing to could cut yourself on. Sandpaper/file can help with rounding the edges.

Select an appropriate sized rivet to secure your bead to the arrowhead. My initial hole on the copper arrowhead was too small, so I had to enlarge it and then I put a rivet in. I put the bead on top and a second, smaller rivet, and then gently hammered the top rivet into the bottom rivet using a rivet setting tool and small hammer. Remember to hammer gently and slowly. Hammering fast and hard will only ruin the rivet and possibly your bead.

Add jump rings, cords, and closures and you've got a very nice pendant.