Vintage Salt Shaker Christmas Ornament Tutorial {VIDEO}

Happy Christmas in July!  I can’t stop buying old salt and pepper shakers!  I bought 12 pair last year on just ONE antiquing trip to Paradise, California!  I especially love finding the tiny ones so I can make salt shaker necklaces out of them.  But I couldn’t resist the larger ones either so I created a salt shaker Christmas ornament for my tree.  I think handmade Christmas ornaments make great gifts, too, so I made a bunch!

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Vintage Salt Shaker Christmas Ornaments

First, I filled these with fake snow.  I cut about a 10″ piece of dark annealed wire.  That’s more than you’ll need but the wire is pretty inexpensive and it’s easier to work with a longer piece.  I ran it through two of the holes in the top, wrapped the short end around the longer three times, and trimmed off the extra with my wire cutters.

This wire is harder than the other wires I use for jewelry so I don’t use my Vintaj cutters.  I use a more heavy duty wire cutter for this wire.

On most of them I then added a freshwater pearl bead.  Sometimes I use other extra beads that I have around.  You can see one in the photo below is pewter.

After stringing the bead on I bend the wire about 1/8″ above it, make a loop with my round nose pliers, and wrap the end of the wire around three times before trimming off.

I made a big “S” hook with the wire to make matching hangers.

I hand stamped several words and phrases on brass discs with my metal punches.  I have 3mm alphabet stamps, 6mm alphabet stamps, and a vintage set that I got at an antique sale.  Here’s the blog post where I bought them AND a lot more salt shakers.

Take a look at the video:

If you like crafting with vintage items and would like some ideas to repurpose them into handmade Christmas ornament and other holiday decor please sign up for our 12 Days of Vintage, Upcycled, Recycled, and Repurposed Christmas Decorations.  You’ll get daily emails full of ideas for 12 days starting in the fall.

And here are a few more projects with salt shakers… and I STILL have more leftover!

• Salt Shaker Photo Holder
• Salt Shaker Snow Globes
• Salt of the Earth Necklace

‘Til the next project,

 Ann @ Duct Tape and Denim

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Originally published on Jul 14, 2015.   We join these blog parties.