Wire wrapped jewelry offers a great way for a unique look. You can start out practicing on inexpensive materials and move up to precious metals for some absolutely beautiful pieces. One great place for any jewelry maker to start is the wire wrapped earring.
Wire wrapped earrings can be really simple or complex and offer a lot in design choices. Reality says your imagination certainly can go to work here and have a field day designing beautiful and unique pieces.
For wire wrapping you will need beads, gemstones, or other materials to be wrapped, wire cutters (both side cutting and end cutting can be used and offer different advantages), pliers and metal wire or head pins. Often times several types of pliers can be an advantages for manipulating and holding the wire. I prefer working with combination pliers which are round at the tip and flat at the base. These are inexpensive and often available in bead kits or at Craft stores such as Michael's or Hobby Lobby. Other helpful ones are round nose pliers, flat nose pliers, and bent nosed pliers. You will also need a earring finding of your choice. Ear wires are readily available and easy to use.
Simple Designs- Simple designs can offer a nice look, be fun to work with, and also be used with other design elements. You can make them with head pins for fast and easy pieces. A head pin has a flat head (like a pin) or other stopper on one end. You can get them fancy with crystals or designs in place of the head or stick with the simple ones, the choice is yours. To make small earrings you will need 2" head pins, medium 2.5-3", and larger ones should use 3+" head pins. The bead choice is completely yours. Have fun picking out new materials, colors or even mixing beads.
Once you have your pins, beads, ear findings, and tools lay everything out. To start this project add the bead or beads to the pin and make a wrapped wire loop at the top of the bead. If you need directions for this check out this article Beading Technique: How to make a wrapped wire loop. There will be left over wire that you will want to use to wrap around the bead(s) instead of trimming it off. You can make all sorts of designs this way. Repeat the same design on the next earring.
More Complex Designs- To make more complex designs you will need to use wire. In the beginning a brass based wire is cheap and easy to find. As time goes on you can use gold and silver wire to make stunning and rich designs. You will also want beads, glass, gemstones, or marbles to wrap. For this project you will want to cut lengths of wire which should be several inches long (depending on how much wrapping you want to do).
Using your pliers you will want to carefully wrap the wire around the bead, gemstone or other materials. If your item doesn't have a whole you will need to cage it in to make sure it will stay. Your design should have a wrapped wire loop at one end which can be added to ear wires or posts.
Using Wrapped Wires with Other Designs- Wrapped wire beads can be used with other elements for pieces that are more elegant, more complex, and or more interesting. For example you can add wrapped wire beads to chain links and then to your wires. You can also mix wrapped wire beads with other beads, wire, or materials.
As with all jewelry making having fun is the best part. Be willing to experiment. Sometimes you will make beautiful and exciting pieces. Other times you will be unhappy with your experiment and will want to take them apart. Either way, have fun with your experimenting and be willing to try new things. With wire wrapping you may find a whole new world for jewelry making and a whole line of wonderful earrings!
by Danelle Karth
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