Making Copper Wire Earrings E-Book

Lora S. Irish

• Herausgeber: Fox Chapel Publishing
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Seitenzahl: 168

Beschreibung

Transform simple copper wire into stunning works of wearable art! From best-selling author and popular artist Lora Irish, learn expert techniques to create over 150 stylish DIY earring designs. With step-by-step instructions, high-quality photography, and helpful tips and tricks, you'll be able to make dozens of beautiful copper wire earrings with unique formations and beaded details! Author and internationally known artist Lora Irish has written several books on many types of art forms, including woodcarving, pyrography, craft pattern books, and more.

Leseprobe

© 2020 by Lora S. Irish and Fox Chapel Publishing Company, Inc., 903 Square Street, Mount Joy, PA 17552.

Making Copper Wire Earrings is an original work, first published in 2020 by Fox Chapel Publishing Company, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright holders.

Print ISBN 978-1-4971-0015-2eISBN 978-1-6076-5725-5

To learn more about the other great books from Fox Chapel Publishing, or to find a retailer near you, call toll-free 800-457-9112 or visit us at www.FoxChapelPublishing.com.

We are always looking for talented authors. To submit an idea, please send a brief inquiry to [email protected].

Acknowledgments

I wish to extend my deepest thanks to Colleen Dorsey and Wendy Reynolds for their excellent work in the creation, development, and refinement of this book. As an author, it is a wonderful experience to work with such a well-skilled team.

Introduction

Of all the kinds of jewelry, I think earrings are the most personally expressive that you can wear. They accent your eyes, your hair length, your neckline, and, of course, your mood. Most of all, wirework and wire-wrapped earrings add a surprise of sparkle, flash, and bling as you turn or tilt you head.

As a crafter, wire-wrapped earrings are a quick and easy outlet for the creative side of your personality. A little change in the size or shape of the beads that you use, a small difference in how you roll a tight spiral, and even the length of a chain dangle can create a totally new and unique design. A little time, a couple of dollars’ worth of beads and wire, and you have wonderful gifts for your family and friends.

Most of the projects presented in this book take less than half an hour to make. The earring sets that became my favorites while I was working are what I call the “end of the day” or “bottom of my kit” sets where I chose to make just one more set from what was left over from the day’s work. You’d be surprised at how great such pairs of earrings can turn out!

As you work through the ideas presented here, I hope that you are inspired to make even more new, unique earring sets beyond what I had the space to share with you.

So, let’s get out some wire, some pliers, and some bright and sparkly beads, and let’s have ourselves some fun.

Contents

PART 1: BUILDING BLOCKS

Chapter 1: Materials andḥ Tools

Wire

Tools

Beads

Chapter 2: Wireworking Basics

Anatomy of an Earring

How to Create the 14 Basic Bends

Combining Basic Bends to Make Wirework Links

Wire-Wrapping Basics

Bead Links and Dangles

Endless Variations on One Wirework Link

Chapter 3: Making Earring Hooks

Gallery of Handmade Hooks

Creating Basic Earring Hooks

Attaching the Earring Hooks

All-in-One Earring Designs

PART 2: PROJECTS

Chapter 4: Step-by-Step Projects

Simple Swirl

Dangling Rubies

Turquoise Dream

Lavender Lace

Chunky Chains

Chapter 5: Quick-Start Projects

Dangles

Chains

Coils

Hoops

Closed Loops

D-Rings

Curves

U-Bends

Multiple U-Bends

Spirals

Hearts

Teardrops

About the Author

CHAPTER 1

Materials and Tools

Wire, of course, is the main material needed for any wire-wrapped earring project. For the projects and samples in this book, I have used copper wire as the main link wire. A few essential tools are needed to create wirework links and to add wire-wrapped accents. A basic toolkit will include wire cutters, chain-nose pliers, round-nose pliers, nylon-jaw pliers, and some kind of file; there are also a lot of additional specialty tools that can come in handy. In addition, a variety of beads can add colorful accents to wire-wrapped earrings. With this collection of basic items, you will be able to make amazing creations. Read on for all the nitty-gritty details about wire, tools, and beads.

WIRE

Jewelry wire comes in a variety of metals and coated metals, such as gold-filled, gold-plated, sterling silver, silver-plated, brass, colored copper, copper, and color-coated aluminum.

Wire is measured by gauge; the higher the gauge, the thinner the diameter of the wire. For making links, use thick gauges from 12 (very thick) to 18 (less thick). Wrapping wires are normally worked using thinner gauges, from 20 (thin) to 26 (very thin).

Copper wire is a favorite for modern wirework jewelry and wire-wrapped jewelry. Available in round, half-round, and square, it is easy to bend and form into almost any shape. It’s also great for the beginner and intermediate jewelry crafter because it is inexpensive and available in a wide range of color coatings. Throughout this book, we will be using copper wire; however, any technique taught in this book can be worked with any metal wire.

Wire comes in three hardness levels; from hardest to softest, these are full-hard, half-hard, and dead-soft. Dead-soft is what you’ll want to use for most of the projects in this book; you can manipulate it a lot before it becomes work-hardened (a term meaning stiffening that occurs during manipulation) and therefore difficult to further manipulate. Half-hard wire can be used for earring hooks or simpler wirework link shapes that won’t require too much manipulation. Avoid full-hard wire for the projects in this book.

WIRE GAUGE

Wire thickness is measured in gauge, with smaller numbers denoting thicker wire. In this image, copper wires of four different gauges were wrapped around a 1 ¼" (3cm)–wide medicine bottle to create identically sized hoop links. From top to bottom, the gauges used are 14, 16, 18, and 20. All four hoop links are wrapped using 28-gauge wire.

While any link can be created from wire of any gauge, in general, for the projects in this book, 18- and 20-gauge wire is used as the main earring link wire, as these gauges are strong enough to hold their shape but light enough to work as earrings. 20-, 24-, and 26-gauge wire is used throughout the projects for the wire-wrapping steps, as thinner wire is more flexible when woven through the bends of the links.

Equivalents

Most jewelry wire is packaged and sold with a US gauge size and a UK millimeter size, but just in case you’re in the UK and don’t have the US gauge, here is a quick reference chart of US gauge and its equivalent millimeter size.

GaugeMillimeters122mm141.6mm161.3mm181mm200.8mm220.6mm240.5mm260.4mm280.3mm300.25mm320.2mm

From top to bottom, the wire gauges used for these hoops are 14, 16, 18, and 20.

The contrast of wire gauges is very obvious in this set, which uses 18-gauge and 30-gauge wire.

RECOMMENDED TYPES OF WIRE

While you can, of course, buy wire through jewelry supply stores and craft stores, copper, brass, aluminum, and stainless steel wire are also commonly available at your local hardware store or from online hardware suppliers. You can also purchase large quantities of wire (in 1-pound spools) online through marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay. All four of these types of wire make wonderful earrings while remaining inexpensive enough that you can freely practice, experiment, and play before moving on to work with more expensive wire like silver or gold wire.

Copper wire is considered a soft wire and can easily be bent using just the pressure of your fingers. After the link is created, it can be work-hardened by lightly tapping the link for about one minute with a nylon mallet.

Brass wire is very hard and needs even, strong pressure to create smooth bends. Brass does not tarnish and retains its bright yellow tone for years.

Aluminum wire is available in a range of hardnesses, from very soft craft wire to harder hardware wire.

Stainless steel wire is a hard wire that can be bent using jewelry tools and a little extra pressure. The metal does not tarnish over time, retaining its bright appearance.

TOOLS

WIRE CUTTERS

Several kinds of wire cutters can serve different purposes. If you only have a budget for one wire cutter, make it a flush cutter.

1 The inner face of a flush cutter is V-shaped to create a sharp cutting edge. The outer face is flush, which leaves a flat, smooth cut on the end of the wire. Plus, the fine tips of a flush cutter allow you to reach into tight spaces. These cutters leave the cleanest, flattest end cut to a wire.

2 The outer face of an end cutter is curved so that only the cutting edge touches the wire. This tool allows you to clip the wrapped loops parallel to the main wire.

3 Side cutters are heavy-duty cutting tools, able to handle thick-gauge wire, like 16-gauge and thicker, easily.

The flat, outer side of a pair of flush cutters is placed against the jewelry piece, with the V-shaped inner cutting edge facing away from the finished project.

Side cutters have a very deep V-shape on the inner cutting edge. The outer edge also carries this V-shape. The final cut will carry the V-shape and may need extra sanding to smooth the cut wire end.

CHAIN-NOSE AND BENT-NOSE PLIERS

Chain-nose and bent-nose pliers ensure you keep a firm grip on the wire you’re working with. You should have a pair of chain-nose pliers as well as a pair of bent-nose pliers.

4 Chain-nose pliers are available with smooth inner gripping surfaces or finely textured inner surfaces that give greater gripping power. Be careful, though: textured inner surfaces can leave fine scratches on the wire.

5 This particular pair of chain-nose pliers includes a handy side cutter at the base of the pliers’ arms, allowing it to do double duty.

6 Bent-nose pliers have special angled noses that allow them to get into tight, hard-to-reach areas. Like chain-nose pliers, they are available with smooth or textured gripping surfaces.

The flat inner surface of any pair of straight pliers allows you to create crisp, angular bends, like the right-angle bend shown here.

Bent-nose pliers have curved noses that can allow for a more flexible grip and angle of approach for tricky wraps.

ROUND-NOSE PLIERS

Round-nose pliers allow you to create perfect round shapes and curves because both arms are cone-shaped to provide a graduated surface on which you can bend circular elements. If you only have a budget for one pair of round-nose pliers, make it a medium-sized, smooth pair.

7 Smooth-surfaced round-nose pliers do not mar or damage the wire as you turn loops.

8 Textured round-nose pliers have cone-shaped arms that are textured with a fine grit pattern. The extra texture makes bending heavy-gauge wires easy but can potentially mar delicate metals.

9 Round-nose pliers are available in a variety of sizes—from extra small for creating tiny jump rings, like this pair, to extra large for creating miniature hoops.

Where you position the wire in the graduated, cone-shaped arms of a pair of round-nose pliers will determine the diameter of the circle you are creating. Close to the tip results in smaller loops; close to the base results in larger loops.

Round-nose pliers can be used to create U-bends, end loops, and mid-wire circles (as shown here).

NYLON-JAW PLIERS

10 A pair of nylon-jaw pliers will make working with spooled wire frustration-free and is an essential part of your toolkit. These straight, wide-armed pliers have a nylon pad that prevents the pliers from scarring the wire. Whenever you use a new wire, pull it through a pair of nylon pliers first to ensure that the working wire is straight and without the small bends that naturally occur from being wrapped on the spool. Roll off a length of wire from the spool, grip the wire close to the spool with the pliers, and then pull the pliers to the end of the wire.

As you can see on this pair of pliers, the nylon pads on some nylon-jaw pliers can be replaced if the pads become damaged over time.

Because of their extra-wide surface, nylon-jaw pliers are perfect for gripping very large curves, spirals, and bends as you work earring links.

FILES, HAMMERS, AND ANVILS

A file is essential for ensuring your earrings are clean and polished. Hammers and anvils, while not essential, will allow you to diversify the effects you create in your earrings.

11 Sandpaper, nail files, and metal files are a great part of any jewelry kit. Use them to remove the small wire burrs that can occur when a wire is cut and to smooth the ends of cut wires.

12 Ball-peen hammers have a slight curve to the hammer’s face that allows you to evenly bend a wire into three-dimensional shapes as well as flatten wire into varying thicknesses. Ball-peen hammers leave small indents, giving a textured finish to the flattened wire.

13 Jeweler’s anvils only measure about 3" (7.5cm) long. The top anvil pictured here has a textured surface that adds small, fine indents to hammered wire. The second anvil is smooth-surfaced.

14 A nylon mallet or plastic head mallet has a dense, smooth plastic head that leaves no scratches, lines, or indents in hammered metal.

Visual texture is an important part of wire-wrapped jewelry. You can add extra texture to wire links by laying the wire link on an anvil and then tapping the link with a ball-peen hammer or nylon mallet.

WIRE-WRAPPING SPECIALTY TOOLS

There are a variety of specialty tools designed just for making wire-wrapped jewelry. These are fun additions to any jeweler’s toolkit, but they are not strictly necessary for the techniques you will be learning in this book.

15 Wire-wrapping pliers is a general term that applies to many different styles of pliers with variously shaped jaws. You may find use for any of them. For example, shown here is a set of pliers that has one flat, straight arm and one cone-shaped arm. This tool makes perfect small loops as well as square-angled bends.

16 Looping pliers have one cone-shaped arm and one concave arm into which the cone-shaped arm fits. You can create perfect half-circle U-bends and loops with this tool.

17 Stepped mandrel pliers also have a concave arm into which the stepped circular arm fits. The stepped arm allows you to control the size of loops, jump rings, and split rings very precisely. It is easy and quick to create a set of rings of exactly the same size using these pliers.

18 Some lower-quality glass beads (typically produced in China) are manufactured on nichrome wires coated with bead release to prevent the hot glass from adhering to the nichrome wire. A bead reamer is used to clean that layer from the hole of a bead, making the center of the bead brighter and clearer in color. Bead reamers are small, thin metal cones that have a textured surface. Slide a reamer into a bead hole and gently file away any bead release inside the hole. You may find that beads can crack during the bead reaming process. However, those beads often were initially cracked during the glass-blowing process, and it was only the bead release that kept the bead from breaking. By cleaning the inside of glass beads before you use them, you can ensure that the beads will not succumb to their inherent flaws and break later during use.

19 Long-nose pliers have extra-long, flat arms. They are wonderful when you are working large wirework links because they secure the entire link during a bending step, not just one or two arms of the link. The extra gripping room is great for when you are working large wire-wrapped earrings.

20 Specialty nylon-jaw pliers have one flat arm and one cone-shaped arm. The cone-shaped arm can be used to hold and bend smooth and perfectly even loops, curves, and circles without damaging the wire.

HOUSEHOLD ITEMS

Many items you already have in your home can be used to help you make earrings. Be creative and open-minded.

21 Assorted markers, medicine bottles, wooden spoons, and a whole host of other household items make perfect rolling forms for bending hoops, spirals, and more.

22 Coiling tools are available for purchase and come in a variety of shapes and sizes for the coiling arm. The handle in which the coiling arm is secured, like the purple one shown here, makes turning the coil quick and easy. However, any even-diameter tubular household item can become a coiling tool, like the nail shown here. For small-diameter coils, though, you will likely need a coiling tool.

23 Miscellaneous items like alligator clips, non-skid kitchen mats, scrap chipboard, permanent markers, measuring tapes, small metric rulers, and painter’s tape are often found in a jeweler’s toolkit. For example, the custom clamp shown here is created using two pieces of scrap cereal box and an alligator clip. The alligator clip holds the wire link secure as the scrap cardboard prevents the clip from scratching the link. As another example, painter’s tape is a low-tack tape that can be used to secure several bending wires together before beginning the wire-wrapping process. Use your imagination and whatever you have on hand to make your life easier while creating earrings.

Cardboard Bobbin

To work an extra-long wrapping or to add a series of small beads to a wire, try creating a cardboard bobbin. Coil the extra-long length of wrapping wire around a square of scrap cardboard with a notch in it, then add all the beads that you will be using. The bobbin controls the wrapping wire while making it easy to slide each bead into place. If you use this technique, you should not wrap the bobbin tightly, as it will kink and work-harden the wire. Small kinks like these are hard to fix and will show in the final wire wrapping.

BEADS

Beads add bright spots of color to wire-wrapped links. There is a shape, color, and texture in beads for every jewelry style, and they are available in a wide variety of media, such as glass, acrylic, resin, gemstone, coral, shell, porcelain, clay, and metal. Beads not only add color to your earring design, but they can also become the base for a wire-wrapping pattern.

Beads are sized in millimeters. The hole in the bead always needs to accommodate the gauge of the wire, but some general sizes tend to work well together visually. Small beads that work well with 20-gauge through 26-gauge wrapping wire are 2mm to 6mm. Larger beads, often used as the focal points of a jewelry design, may range from 8mm up to 20mm and work well with 16-gauge through 20-gauge wire.

Throughout the projects in this book, bead sizes, colors, and shapes are provided, but you can use any beads you prefer when making your own version of a project. Just hold your bead options against your link wire to see if you like the effect.

CHAPTER 2

Wireworking Basics

ANATOMY OF AN EARRING

Before getting started, you need to understand the basic “anatomy” of the types of earrings you’ll be learning to make in this book. Each earring is more or less comprised of three parts: the earring hook, the wirework link, and the decorative elements.

Earring hook: This is the part of the earring that actually passes through the ear. One end needs to be thin and unencumbered in order to function; the other end can be simple or complex, but it typically simply serves as an anchor point for the rest of the earring. You can purchase inexpensive premade earring hooks, or you can make your own custom earring hooks (see Chapter 3 for more detail).

Wirework link: