A DIY Wedding Hanger

Lately I have been drooling over all of the beautiful wedding hangers out there. I don't know what has come over me, why do I care so much about a hanger? I have no idea, all I know is that I wanted one...bad. At $20-$40 each though, I didn't want one that bad. I started to toy with the idea of crafting my own. It couldn't be that hard, could it? Well, let me show you my first few attempts:

Okay, I know that looks bad. Did I just scare you? I will tell you that it does take a few tries. I promise though that once you get the hang of how the wire bends, it's smooth sailing. I encourage everyone to not be scared of this project and give it a shot. You can make these beautiful hangers for less than $5. So here we go.

These are my supplies that I used. The hangers I got at Target, and the rest I bought at Michaels. That tool that you see there is actually a three in one. It includes needle nose pliers that also bends the wire as well as cuts the wire. The wire and jewels I bought in the jewelry department. Make sure you buy thick enough wire. If it is too thin it will be very easy to bend. Which might sound great, but it is not. It will be much too flimsy and not look good. The thicker wire will be slightly harder to bend but will look much nicer.

The first thing you need to do is just start bending the wire. I don't have any photos of that process. Come on, i'm not superwoman. It's a little difficult to bend wire and take photos. Basically though you just have to wing it. Leave yourself some extra wire on each end and just start bending and twisting. I used a tube of chap stick to wrap the wire around for circular shapes. That helped quite a bit in keeping the circle smooth. The pliers helped in pinching the wire together and bending the shapes. You also want to make sure that each letter is relatively the same size. You really just need to go with it, and if you screw up then start again. You will get the hang of it.

Once your wire is bent, you need to drill a hole in the bottom of the hanger. Mr. Buck helped me with this and he did an awesome job. First he measured the bottom of the hanger and marked where he would make the drill hole. This way it would keep things even.

We then compared bit sizes to the thickness of the wire. We wanted the bit size to be just slightly larger so that the wire will fit in nice and snug. We ended up going with the bit size 5/64.

Drill away, baby!

Next you need to line up your wire underneath the hanger to decide how much of the extra wire you need to trim off. You want it to be centered with the same amount of room on each end. 

{So sorry I have to blur that out.}

Take out your trusty glue gun (mine still has moss stuck to it) and add a tiny bit of glue to the end of the wire. Don't put too much or else it won't fit well into the drill hole.Once the wire is in the hole, just let it sit for a minute to let it fully dry.

I added a white bow to mine and a small Swarovski crystal. It isn't perfect, but I don't think it looks half bad! Especially for under $5. 

{It KILLS me that I have to blur that out.}

What do you think of my wedding hanger? Do you plan on making a special hanger for your gown?