Little Nests

This is wire wrapping over needle felt, literally.

I had the idea to make earring nests and it just couldn't wait.

They're supposed to match a necklace.

Filled with blue freshwater pearls.

I was quite pleased with them.

Finishing Touches

I added a couple of decorative elements to the wire crochet. Then I made sure everything sitting around had a necklace chain or ear wire. I need to focus on bears and cats now.

Copper Bail Tutorial

I've been waiting and waiting on some bails to be delivered for my Scrabble charm project. If you know me then you know it's a big deal when I order something online. I tend to like to find what I need locally. The glue on bails are hard to come by so I Etsy ordered, keep it in the family as much as possible. In the mean time I made more charms than I ordered bails. Do I order more??? I started thinking, you can hammer copper, I should try making my own bails?

I started with a 2 - 2 1/2" piece of 18 gauge copper wire, you want some thickness.

Sorry, I'm working with rustic tools here but they work! My vise works fine as an anvil along with my small hammer. Hammer the center of your wire, just in that one spot. Do not over hammer this spot because it will become weak. You can tell if this has happened when you bend the wire and it forms a crease in the loop. You'll need to start over with a new piece if this happens.

You can either use the round nose pliers to bend your loop or...

...a skewer. For me this worked better because it doesn't taper.

This is where you can go wild but to start you off, twist your wire under the loop.

Here I've made a circle shape.

I used the longer bit to secure to the top and nipped off the shorter bit.

Not the same one but I held all the pieces by the dowel or pliers and hammered until they were completely flat below the loop.

Hammered flat...

...and lookin good!

Each one comes out different and as you do more, more design ideas come.

I will not need to order bails any longer. You could do this with silver also.

Ok, now comes the gluing part.

I bought super glue. I think I need something thicker next time. This went on wet and of course you're paranoid that it will dry in a second. Well for this application it was wet longer than I thought it would be. I even wondered if it was going to dry and then all of a sudden it was dry. Disconcerting for sure. You have the whole gluing your fingers to stuff also!

It's done though, they're stuck on real good.

Here's an example of what you could do with them. I made the bracelet a while back.

Go wild!

Copper Ring Tutorial

The ring I made before went well so I wanted to play around with that some more. Here I have a gauge 22 and 18 wire. The smaller the number the thicker the wire.

Yes, it's a handle of some sort. This end makes a bigger ring, something like a size 8. the other end has a metal collar and is more like a size 6 1/2 - 7. The beads I used today are a semi-precious amethyst and they fit both wire sizes.

This is the 18 gauge which I'm wrapping twice. The 22 gauge I wrap three times. I brought the wires together and bent one up and one down in the center.

Work one bead at a time.

Once strung with a bead each wire goes behind in the opposite direction.

Like so.

Time to put the ring back on our "form". This is when you want to tighten everything up and make sure the wire is going where you want it to go.

Now you want to make the wire and beads symmetrical. What you do on the top, do the opposite on the bottom. I do feel my way through each ring, for me it's an organic process. I've also snipped the wires to and inch, inch and a half. This depends on how big you want your spirals.

I prefer smaller ones so I snipped mine to an inch. Use the round nosed pliers to start the spiral.

With the thicker wire especially I need to get the spiral into my flat nosed and really crank. Let the spiral sit in the bottom part of your pliers and the wire feed through the top.

This spiral will sit below the top bead.

Like so.

Again, what you did with your first spiral do the opposite with the other.

One in both sizes, each a little different. I didn't get this wire at the craft store, this is wire that Lois from "A Beaded Affair" brought me. Great price in lots of gauges and shapes and she's got nice beads too. Her site is on my blog list.

Practice

This is another method Lois showed me for wrapping a stone.

Her beaded chain on the left, mine on the right. Enough said.

She left a couple of stones for me to wrap.

I put together a couple of scrap pieces to practice on.

To bad I didn't start with the right length wire, it looks OK so far.