We love our metal hole punch pliers! They’re the perfect tool to punch holes in metal to make jewelry. We used our metal hole punch pliers to turn pressed pennies into a cute souvenir necklace. You can also use them to turn a watch face into a pendant or make earrings from stamped metal flowers. We’ll show you how!
To get started, you will need a pair of metal hole punch pliers. You can get these at Amazon, craft stores, or your local bead store. We like Beadsmith Metal Hole Punch Pliers for Sheet Metal. They cost less than ten dollars. The link is an affiliate link which costs you nothing, but rewards us a little if you decide to buy them.
Here’s a video we made showing how to use the metal hole punch pliers.
Video Tutorial: How To Use A Metal Hole Punch For Jewelry
Souvenir Penny Necklace
Materials & Tools
7 Pressed Pennies
6 faceted crystal rondelles
Copper wire, 24 gauge
Copper chain
Copper clasp
Copper jump rings
Metal hole punch pliers
Wire cutters
Steps
1. Start by collecting some souvenir pressed pennies! These pennies have been flattened in a machine that presses a souvenir image into the penny as it gets flattened. We collect them everywhere! It usually costs fifty cents (plus the penny!) to get a souvenir pressed penny. We have scads of them, so we decided to make a necklace. (You could also make a bracelet.) These pressed pennies are thin enough to use a metal hole punch on.
2. To make the necklace, you’ll need to punch a hole in each end of the pressed penny. Line the hole punch up with the end of the flattened penny.
Squeeze the pliers to punch the hole. Do not put the hole too close to the edge of the penny. Repeat at the other end of the pressed penny. Punch all the pennies.
Do not put the hole too close to the edge of the penny. Repeat at the other end of the pressed penny. Punch all the pennies.
3. To assemble the necklace, cut a piece of chain three links long.
Attach it to the clasp with a jump ring. Here’s a video showing how we like to open and close a jump ring.
4. Attach the chain to a flattened penny using a simple loop component and a small bicone crystal.
Here’s a video showing how to make a simple loop component.
5. Next, attach a piece of chain 2 links long to the penny using a jump ring. Then make a simple loop component with a crystal rondelle connecting to another two-link chain.
6. Attach that chain to the next penny using a jump ring.
Continue in this way until all the pennies are linked together. Finish by attaching the other side of the clasp to the last piece of chain.
Have you ever used a metal hole punch? What have you punched? We’d love to hear from you. And if you have any questions, leave us a comment! We’ll reply!
Jennifer & Kitty
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