How to Create Beautiful Beaded Earrings: A Step-by-Step Guide
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Introduction
Creating your own jewelry can be a rewarding and creatively fulfilling experience. In this guide, we will walk you through the steps to make a simple yet beautiful pair of beaded earrings. Utilizing head pins, beads, and earring findings, you'll learn essential techniques to create unique and personalized accessories. The best part? This project is perfect for beginners!
Materials Needed
Before we begin crafting our earrings, let’s gather all the materials and tools you'll need:
- Beads: Choose colors and styles that you love.
- Head Pins: We will use two-inch head pins for this project.
- Earring Findings: French hooks or any other earring type you prefer.
- Tools:
- Chain Nose Pliers
- Round Nose Pliers
- Flush Cutters
Step 1: Understanding Head Pins
Head pins are a type of wire with a little nail head at one end, which allows for securing beads in place without falling off. For beginners, it's recommended to use either a 2-inch or a 3-inch head pin, depending on how long you want your dangles to be. Aim for about an inch of wire above the beads for wiring and loops.
Step 2: Making Wrapped Loops
In this tutorial, we prioritize wrapped loops over open loops. Wrapped loops not only look more professional but also secure the beads more effectively.
How to Make a Wrapped Loop
- Prepare Your Head Pin: Begin by beading your head pins with your selected beads. Make sure to leave some space above the beads for bending and wrapping.
- Create a 90-Degree Angle: Grasp the head pin with the chain nose pliers right above your beads, and bend the wire at a 90-degree angle.
- Form the Loop: Switch to your round nose pliers. Hold the pliers so the tips are on top of each other, grab the tip of the bent wire, and bend it towards your beads. This should create a hook shape.
- Secure the Loop: Place the bent wire back into the bottom of your round nose pliers, then wrap the tail of the wire around the loop to form coils. Make sure to maintain the circular shape as you wrap.
- Trim the Excess Wire: Using your flush cutters, carefully cut off any excess wire. Always face the flat side of the cutter towards the piece you want to preserve.
Step 3: Attaching Earring Findings
Next, we will attach the earring findings to the finished beaded dangles.
How to Attach Earring Findings
- Open the Findings: Using your chain nose pliers, open up the bottom of the earring finding by pulling it sideways, similar to how you would open a jump ring.
- Attach Your Dangle: Insert the loop of your beaded piece into the opening of the earring finding.
- Close the Finding: Use your pliers to securely close the finding by pinching it shut. Ensure it’s tightly closed by looking from multiple angles.
Tips for a Perfect Finish
- Gauge Matters: Head pins come in various gauges. A lower gauge number indicates a thicker wire. For beginners, sticking with 20 to 24 gauge is recommended.
- Matching Colors: Try to choose metal spacers that complement the metal of your head pins for a cohesive look.
- Safety First: When cutting wire, it’s wise to cover your hands with another hand to avoid injury from flying pieces. Also, consider wearing safety glasses while working.
Conclusion
Now you've created a stunning pair of beaded earrings! Remember that practice is key in jewelry making. Don't hesitate to experiment with different beads, wires, and designs to find your unique style. If you enjoyed this tutorial, please consider subscribing to our channel for more DIY projects. Feel free to leave any comments or questions below. Happy crafting!
hi everyone its Abbe you at the bead place and bead place top that and today I'm gonna be showing you how to make a
simple pair of beaded earrings using beads head pins and earring findings the tools we'll be using today are a chain
nose pliers a round nose pliers and a flush cutter will be using head pins to make our earrings today a head pin is a
wire with a little nail head on the end of it the head of the head pin stops your beads from falling off yet so I'm
using a two inch head pin here I recommend as a beginner that you use anywhere from a 2 to a 3 inch head pin
depending on the size or length of your bead and dangle you want about an inch of wire at the top of your beaded dangle
showing so that we can wire wrap and create a closed wrap loop we're gonna be making wrapped loops today rather than
open loops wrap loops are more professional and they provide a more durable finished piece of jewelry the
loops don't open so you can't lose your dangle very easily off of the earring finding you'll notice that on these
earrings that I'm using I have some metal spacers that match the metal of my head pins generally that's a good rule
of thumb but you can get creative and use whatever you'd like so I've beaded my head pins here and now
I'm gonna grab my chain nose pliers you'll notice that my pliers have a smooth inside to them with no serrations
that's important to make sure we're not going to scratch our work so I'm grabbing the head pin at the top of my
beaded section using the tip of my chain nose pliers then I'm going to bend the wire into a 90 degree angle so you'll
see there's a little bit of a space between the bend and my bead that's important that's gonna get wrapped with
some coils now I'm switching to my round nose pliers I'm going to hold the noses of the pliers so that they're on top of
one another and I'm gonna grab right on the part that's bent over you'll notice that I'm just slightly past the very tip
if I go all the way back it makes a bigger loop and if I go all the way to the front of the pliers it makes a
smaller loop so now I'm going to bend the wire upper the top of the pliers and down towards
my beads so if I take it off it should kind of look like a hook so now what I'm going to do is put the loop back on the
bottom nose of the round nose pliers and take the tail end underneath the round nose pliers and straight out to the
other side you can kind of adjust the loop on the top of your post so that it's sitting directly on top and
centered so we should have a lowercase cursive e on top of our post and we're going to bend the tail end around
underneath the pliers so underneath our loop and we're going to start to coil around towards the beads so you can
either continue coiling with it on your round nose pliers or you can switch to a chain nose pliers and grab directly
across the loop like what I'm doing here just make sure that you're grabbing across the loop with your pliers rather
than in through the loop when you're using your chain nose pliers because you don't want to miss shapen that perfect
circle that we should have at the top of our loop so after you've coiled all the way around the most that you can with
your fingers you can actually continue coiling if need be with your pliers so you can put the loop back on your round
nose pliers and use the chain nose pliers to help you push the wire around or you can grab the wire I like to try
to coil most of the way with my fingers and then if I need to go in with my pliers but if you want to use your
pliers to coil the entire way around you're welcome to do that as well just do what's comfortable for you so now
what you're going to do is take a flush cutter and trim the tail end off you'll notice that there's a angled side and a
flat side to the cutters so this is the flat side you'll want to face the flat side to what you're cutting and my trick
is I always grab gently with the cutter where I'm planning on cutting then cover it with your hand
and execute the cut that way that little piece doesn't fly across the room or it doesn't fly up into your eyes and it
wouldn't even be a bad idea to wear safety glasses whenever you are cutting wire like this because it can be
dangerous so if need be you can take the chain nose pliers in again and tuck anything down that you might need to
tuck down then we use the chain nose pliers to open up the bottom of your earring finding most earring findings
open at the bottom like this French hook does so you'll want to pull it open to the side much like you would a jump ring
you don't want to pull the loop open long ways you want to pull it open sideways so you'll put your earring
finding directly into the loop and take your chain nose pliers and close it you want to make sure it's closed all the
way so it's not a bad idea to check from a couple of different angles while looking at it and then you're just going
to repeat these same steps with the other head pin head pins come in different gauges so the gauge of the
head pin is how thick it is the thicker the head pin the lower the number of the gauge so an 18 gauge head pin is
actually going to be thicker than a 26 cage had been the head pins that I'm working with here are about 20 gauge so
the size that I like to recommend to beginners would be anywhere from a 20 gauge to a 24 gauge head pin a lot of
times the size of the head is going to be in direct relation to the size of the gauge so the thicker the head the
gauges and different sizes occasionally you'll run across beads that have too big of a hole for the head of the head
pin to stop when you string them on the head pin so in that case I like to recommend using either a little
decorative metal spacer or a little seed bead at the bottom of your design that will stop your bead from falling off of
the head pin so it just needs to be big enough that it won't go through the hole of your bead but not big enough that it
will take away from your focal design I like little spacers that match any of the metal colors that I'm using in my
design like you can see here I've got a little copper spacer at the bottom and then some copper Daisy spacers that I'm
stringing between my colorful beads so just string your beads and continue on with your wraps as you normally would
husbands not only come in different metal colors but they also come in different metal qualities there's a
popular saying that goes you get what you pay for and generally that rings true when it comes to jewelry making
findings so some of the plated metals are going to be a little bit harder for you to work with and let's say sterling
silver or 14-karat gold filled head pins and then some of the cheaper plated head pins will be a lot harder to bend then
the good quality plated head pins so that's something to keep in mind when selecting the right head pin for the job
as always thank you so much for watching this video if you have any questions or just want to say hey drop it in the