Easy Wire and Beads and a New Free Earring Project
Join us at Maker Festivals Pennsylvania, the ultimate crafting extravaganza in Lancaster from July 31-August 3, 2024, and we will once again be bringing our fiber artists with us! Our festival lineup will have thousands of fiber artists, and jewelry makers!
| Can a Bead Lover Love Wire?
When you make a pair of earrings, do you start with wire and add beads? Or, do you have beads you want to use and choose wire as your framework? Though I love the linear design possibilities in wire itself, I usually use wire to be, shall we say, the branch from which to hang the fruit––the beads. |
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Fastest earrings I ever made I especially like using discs, such as these lampworked beauties by JoAnne Zekowski. Few earring designs are faster than this: Use a round-nose pliers to bend a ball-end head-pin loop large enough to capture your bead and carefully bring the ball to the wire so the bead is secure but hangs nicely. Bend the long wire end around a pencil for the part that goes through your ear, and you’re finished! |
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Add detail with wirework You can stop right here and have a nice little pair of earrings. Or, play with another piece of wire and make a dangle for your earrings. Try an easy spiral and hammer it into a solid form. |
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Wire wrap it up Attach your spiral to the disc with a wire-wrapped loop, large enough to capture the wheel. Make a simple wire-wrapped loop beneath the focal bead, then attach the spiral with another simple wire-wrapped loop. |
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Adding elements I added another dangle to the spiral with a jump ring, so you can see that adding beads or other elements to your wirework––or using wire with your beads––can be SO easy. |
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Totally Twisted! Wire and beads can really get a party started when you bring more color to the mix and advance your wireworking. You have to see Kerry Bogert’s new book, Totally Twisted. It’s a celebration! |
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Which comes first for you, the wire or the beads? Share your wired beadwork––or beaded wirework in our Gallery on Beading Daily. Wire and beads, wahoo!
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