Treble Clef Key Ring

This is a fairly simple design for a wire Treble Clef key ring. If you have something pretty to hang this on it could also make a nice necklace etc.

This is super easy to make, with stuff around the house, and makes a nice gift, especially if you don't want your valentines day gift to be too cliché.

Accompanied by a kind word; "without the music of your love I would be nothing" this gift can say more, and cost less, than a £5 box of chocolates from Walmart :-)

NOTE: Blast, I knew I had seen this somewhere! MrBalleng'sTreble Clef Pendant  seems to be exactly the same! I am going to keep this instructable up just as a detailed step-by-step on the formation of the treble clef itself, but all praise to MrBalleng please - no thunder stealing here. I think I must have made my original key ring using his instructable actually, seeing as I hammered the ends (poorly) for effect - blast my feeble mind. Ah well, good to get his design up in the public eye some more :-).

Step 1: Materials

Really easy to make, all you need is:

A pair of pliers - mine include a little wire cutter in the middle, although in an ideal world I would prefer not to use these as they aren't superbly effective.
About 25cm of wire - I don't know what gauge of wire I used I'm afraid, I just use anything that happens to be lying around, in this case it was old unused chicken wire.
Your hands - gloves maybe, I have spiked myself more than once doing this, but haven't got lockjaw yet!

Step 2: Make the First Loop

Grasping the very end of the wire in the very tip of the pliers turn the wire around the nose of the pliers, as shown.

Step 3: Curl Opposite End.

Take the opposite end of the wire and curl it over itself, about 45 mm away of straight wire. This curl is a little larger, so try and hold the wire further down the pliers so as not to make a kink in it. The wire needs to curl *over* the top of the first 45 mm length.

Step 4: 2nd Loop Under the Wire

Now the wire loops under itself again. This time you want to hold the wire nice and low down the pliers again so as not to make a kink. I tend to find that the 2st loop needs to cross over 2/5ths of the straight, and the second crossing (underneath the wire) needs to pass over the wire as it begins the first bend. This is rather tricky to explain, so take a look at the photo.

Step 5: Curl Back Over and Cut.

This is potentially the trickiest step. You need to curl the working end of the wire back over the top of the wire length to form the treble clef shape, but doing this without kinking the wire or bending the rest of the shape is difficult.

Hold the wire quite far down the pliers so as not to kink, and bend the wire over your finger to make a nice tight turn without any sharp edges. The crossing wire should be parallel to the first cross of the straight length.

Cut the wire length exactly where it crosses the loop, you might have to bend the wire up to cut it before bending it back down again.

Step 6: Make the Final Bend.

Just like we bend the first end around the pliers, bend the last end tightly around the nose of the pliers. That should be it, finished! You might need to manipulate the wire a little bit with the pliers to correct any slight kinks or other issues with the shape, but that's fairly subjective.

I hope you like it, and as I said, it makes a great little non-cliché valentines gift if you're not into the canoodling over cups of sweet rose tea kind of valentines day.

Good luck, and post your versions in the comments! :-)