{DIY} Beaded Cake Pin Tutorial

Today on Home Confetti, she showcased a cool post about decorating toothpics with beads.  This post reminded me of the beaded straight pins I used to sell on my etsy store as cake decor pins.  I had originally created them for my own wedding.  Seeing as how I don’t sell them in my etsy store any longer, I thought maybe it would be nice of me to give you a little tutorial on how I made my pins.  My tutorial is a bit different from the tutorial Home Confetti showcased.  Those were done with toothpics and totally worth taking a look at too because the aesthetics are different than these, but just as cool.

MATERIALS

• Straight pins sold at bead stores (they don’t have pointed, sharp ends, just flat.  You can see what I mean in the pictures below.)
• Your choice of beads (make sure the pins fit through the hole of the bead and that the hole of the bead isn’t too big for the top of the pin.  The top of the pin does have a tiny flat surface like a regular pin.)
• Crimps (get a few more than the number of pins you have – sometimes they break)
• A pair of needle nose pliers
• Small bowls (like small ramekin or pyrex dishes – these will be used to hold and organize your beads)

WHAT YOU DO:

• Organize your beads, pins & crimps into separate bowls and line them up assembly style.  If you want all your cake pins to look the same, it will be easy to just go down the line.
• Start at the first bowl: pick up a pin, slide on the first bead, then second, third…you get the picture.  Make sure to leave room to slide the pin into the cake.
• Lastly, slide on a crimp.  Turn the pin upside down, grab your pliers and use them to tighten the crimp by squeezing it until it squishes tight on the pin against the bottom bead.  Whallah!  You are fini.

Here are some more (badly taken) pictures of my cake pins: