hello and welcome to another jewelry makingvideo brought to you by keepsakecrafts.net today, we are going to shape some wire, hammerit out, wrap some beads and we will end up with a pair of earrings with a great rustic appeal. so to make these earrings, first you willneed some heavy gauge wire. this is a 14 gauge copper wire. and you will also needsome fine gauge wire. this is 28 gauge. you will need some beads. and try to find smallerbeads, three millimeters or less is good. these are little wooden beads that i thoughtwould be nice with the wire. but i had also considered using these pearlswhich i thought would be a pretty contrast. so dig through your bead stash and see whatyou have that will go well with the wire that
you have. you will also need a pair of ear wires. and then for tools you will need a few: afile to clean up the ends of the wire. a large round mandrel or some bail making pliers.i will be using a seven millimeter round section of this. some heavy duty wire cutters, chainnose pliers. you will also need a chasing hammer. that's the one with the rounded headnot a flat head and a bench block or a small anvil to pound on. and then to get our ovalshape, i am going to be using this oval mandrel but if you have something you can wrap thingsaround to get your shape then that's fine too.so the first thing we are going to do is shape the small round loop at the top of our wire.and i am going to use these pliers and i am
going to put the wire a little past. and iam just going to wrap. making sure i stay on the round part. and you can just keep tighteningas you twist and then loosen to move. and what i want, i want my loop to be roundall the way around because there is a point that you reach where you can't make it roundanymore. and its longer the stiffer the wire is. so you can see where this is straighthere. so i made it sure i made it round past that so i can cut off that straight bit.then we are going to use our mandrel. these mandrels actually comes in sets. you can makeany shape you want. here is square, here is a triangle shape and then round ones. i likethe oval and i took some time when i first got these and wrote on them what sizes everything is.
so i am going to use a fairly large oval inthis set, the 26 millimeter by 20 millimeter. and i'm going to place the top of my loopright up here and it's a little tricky. just kind of use your thumb and hold it in placeespecially this heavy gauge wire. and just wrap around the mandrel.and just like in the loop, i am going to go past where i want to be so that the wire isrounded nicely. and then i will just twist that loop up. and you definitely don't wantto use your nice fine wire nippers to do this. this is heavy wire so i am going to use somekind of beat up wire cutters. and i'm going to cut the wire right whereit meets that loop. notice that i left it on the coil and that way there is not muchwaste. you will end up using about five inches
of wire per earring. so there is that andi'm just going to make this loop a little more elongated. squeeze it a little. and theni am going to repeat up here on the loop, cutting it off, i'm just going to bend itout and cut the wire off right where it meets. here we go right where it meets the otherwire. i am going to hold on to that piece because we don't want that to go flying. andi'm not going to worry about these rough ends just yet i will use the file in a minute.now the next step is to bring in your bench block and your chasing hammer. and you wanta round faced hammer so that when you pound you are not going to be getting the marksof the sides of the hammer. and then it's just a matter of pounding all around to flattenthis out.
and i'm not going to demonstrate all the pounding.you see i'm not using a lot of force, i'm just tapping. and just tap all the way around.keep your finger out of the way and change position. and keep going, flip it over. dothe other side. keep going until it's flattened out and youhave a nice even thickness all around. it will grow a little bit like this one. andif you like you can use the other side, the rounded side of your hammer and give it thisnice hammered finish. pounding all around and you have to do both sides to do that.once that's done, you can take your file and go in and file off those ends. in this oneyou can actually file at a bit of an angle because that's how it meets that loop. andyou may have to use a pair of pliers to twist
that end in so that it meets the frame neatly.so now that you hammered to your heart's content, have shaped your frames the way you likethem and have filed those edges smooth it's time to add beads. by the way it's a goodidea to first do the shaping of your wire for both earring frames before you start hammeringit. just to make sure that they match in size and shape. otherwise you will have to do whati did which is make a third and then pick the two that most closely match each other.but if you do that you can also make the third one into a pendant.so now for the beads, we need our fine gauge wire and some beads. and the first thing thatwe are going to do is make sure that we have two frames that are opposite each other sowe have opposites for the earrings. and we
are going to take one end of our piece offine gauge wire and we are going to wrap it around the end of the frame with a split threeor four times nice and tight, make those wraps right next to each other. you can use a pair of chain nose pliers to really crimp those wraps onto the frame. andthen trim off the excess wire. i like to do it on the inside and i'm going to tuck thatend in but if it's on the inside, it's not going to be poking or scratching anybody.and then string on a bead and hold the bead to the outside of the frame. and then theway i like to wrap wire on a closed frame, let me put that out of the way so you cansee what i'm doing. i will poke up a loop
with my finger. in that way you have muchless chance of getting kinks. if you find you have a loop crossed over itself,stop right away and uncross that loop because a loop is a kink waiting to happen. so thenwe are going to wrap around. two full wraps between each bead and then string on another bead.so once again hold the bead. and then again poke up the wire and then wrap. and once youget practicd at this you can move along pretty quickly. and just repeat going all the wayaround your frame. and then when you end, end the way you began with three or four nicetight wraps. so once you finished all your wraps you justneed to add your ear wire. use a pair of chain
nose pliers to twist it open. insert the loopof your frame. twist the ear wire closed and you are done. repeat for your other earring.here is another look at the earrings we made today. i hope you enjoyed this project andthat you will give wire wrapping and hammering and shaping a try. if you have sterling silverwire, that would work great. brass wire, any wire really. if you have copper or silveror brass that is uncoated, it will tarnish and you can actually use that to your advantageto get a great old antiqued look by soaking the items in liver of sulfur then polishingup the high points. and the dark will stay in the crevices in the wires.here's a little bit of a bonus for you. i took that third frame that i had made andwire wrapped on the pearls i had been considering.
this will be a necklace pendant is whati have in mind. i think i want to put something in the center like a larger pearl or maybea crystal. so you can see here is an example of how you can take something and take an idea, change it up a little bit and run with it. thank you so much for watching keepsakecrafts' videos. up on the screen are two more videosyou may enjoy watching. please be sure to click subscribe so you don't miss any of myvideos and also click the like button if you like this video. and be sure to check outmy blog, keepsakecrafts.net, where i have lots more crafting and sewing ideas and inspiration.thanks again for watching. have a good one, bye-bye.
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