Basics: Let’s Design Simple Earrings with Headpins and @JohnBeadCorp beads
OHIO
#stacierabbitjewelry #jewelry #jewelrytutorial #earrings #howtomakeearrings #headpin #simpleearrings #simpleloop #johnbead #beadearrings
Hi, this is Stacey from Stacey Rabbit Jewelry. I was recently showing a friend of mine how to make
earrings using head pins and that inspired me to make some basic videos for jewelry making.
So these are head pins and you'll see that they have a ball or a little disc at one end.
These are made out of copper but they come in a variety of different metal finishes
and these are a 22 gauge head pin. I tend to prefer between 20 and 24 gauge head pins.
A very simple way to make earrings is to start with a head pin and all you have to do
is put your beads that are of interest onto your head pin like I am doing here
and you will have something that looks just like that. You'll want to make sure that you have about
a half an inch left of pin after you've added your beads in order to make a loop. So in order
to finish off the earring, the first thing that we're going to do is we're going to create a
simple loop out of this wire and that will allow us to attach it onto an earring. And so I like to
use a chain nose pliers that looks something like this and come in and grab my wire pretty close to
my top bead and just bend that to a right angle so it should look something like this. The next
thing we're going to do is come in with a flush cutters and we are going to trim off the extra
wire. So I tend to leave about this much wire here and you can discard the little piece that you cut
off. It's often helpful like I did to put your hand over the piece so when you cut it doesn't
go flying. So this is about what we have left. So I went and I measured this and this is between a
quarter and a half an inch and that's about the right length to make a simple loop with. A larger
length will make a larger loop and a smaller length will make a smaller loop. The last tool that we're
going to need to complete our earring is a round nose pliers and we're going to use these barrels
here to turn this into a loop. So you're going to take your wire and put it at the very end
between your round nose pliers. What you're going to do is just turn your wrist
to start making a loop and then I like to reposition my hand and the wire a little bit
and keep slowly turning back until the end meets the place where you started on the loop.
So here is what it should look like. The good thing about wire is you can make it do
what you want and adjust it. So my loop is a little crooked, it's kind of going off to this side, so I just
came in with my pliers and straightened that out. So the last thing that we need to do is attach
our butterfly charm to an ear wire. We're going to need to open this loop in order to attach our
charm. So I hold the loop with my finger of my left hand because I'm right-handed and I keep the tool
on my right hand and I come in and grab the open end and twist it away from me. You never want to
pull open jump rings or simple loops, you always want to twist them open and closed.
Then you just have to come in and put the loop of your earring onto your open loop and pick up your
chain nose pliers again and grab again toward the end of the wire and just slowly close it.
And sometimes you want to go back and forth too and that will help you get better alignment of
the wire and sometimes just to make sure it's flush I'll just clamp down on it lightly with
my chain nose pliers. And this here is what you end up with. Another tip that I have is sometimes
you get a head pin that's a little bit funky and bent looking like the one here.
You can come in with your hand and just gently smooth out that wire.
Thank you for joining me and check out my other videos.