I am excited to announce that I am this week's Crafty Superstar over at Cut Out + Keep! For the next few days I will share here they tutorials I wrote for them. I haven't written a lot of tutorials so I was super excited to take up the challenge. Enjoy!
I love beads of all shapes and sizes, but sometimes the
prettiest parts are hidden if you string them in the traditional way. I didn’t want to hide the beautiful colors of
the seed bead disks from Sue Kennedy. These large loop wire
earrings solve that problem!
For supplies you’ll need a pair of disk
shaped beads, and two lengths of wire.
More is better, but I would go with at least 6 inches for the single
bead style and 8 inches for the two bead style.
I highly recommend copper based wire from Parawire
which is beautiful, comes in a zillion colors and is very affordable. The orange beads are my own creation, the
ethereal blue/purple beads are from HMB Studios.
For
the single bead style, using chain nose pliers, bend the wire 90 degrees in the
middle.
Use wrap and tap pliers (or a
sharpie) to bend one side into a large loop.
It should be large enough for the bead to rotate freely.
String the bead onto the wire and position in your
loop.
Using chain nose pliers to grip
the loop right below where the wires cross, wrap the horizontal wire around the
vertical wire 2-3 times.
Trim the excess of the wrapped wire, and then bend the vertical
wire 90 degrees.
Use the wrap and tap
pliers or your sharpie to form a similarly sized loop, so it looks like a
figure 8.
Trim the excess wire, a little past were the circle
meets.
Then use chain nose pliers to
bend the end out a little. I find this
makes getting the earrings into your ear easier.
Using
a chasing hammer and bench block to gently flatten the top/ear part of the
earring – this will harden it. Take care
not to hammer your bead!
You can also
gently file the end to smooth it out and make it more comfortable to put in
your ear J
The
two bead version starts the same way, only start with a little more wire and
make your bend at about the 1/3 mark.
Use the 2/3 side to make your loop, and wrap it 1 or 2 times after
putting your bead on the loop.
Then put
our accent bead on the short/vertical wire.
Pull
the horizontal wire up and around the accent bead, and then wrap around the
vertical wire 2 to 3 times. The wired
wrapped around your accent bead doesn’t need to be too tight.
Trim off the excess and bend the vertical
wire 90 degrees with your chain nose pliers.
Finish
the earring as you did the other style by forming the second loop, trimming
excess wire, hammering and filing.
Enjoy!
