Create a Wire Wrapped Pendant with a River Rock

hi I'm Donna pelt and a lot of my friends are interested in how I've been wrapping stones but with wire to create jewelry so this is just a quick tutorial for my friends to learn these are the tools that you'll need they're tools that you could get at a seam or you don't have to get expensive ones first there's a blunt nose pliers that's for squeezing off and size and just holding things that's very helpful these are needle nose pliers just for making circles for making spirals here's just a wire cutters just that you know it's probably finer than the kind that you would get at a hardware store so I recommend that this is optional this is for making your bails at the the top of your jewelry it's helpful not necessary the kind of wire I recommend is the one that comes on spools because it's a lot easier to work with I like 18 it's it's probably the heaviest you want to work with 20 is a little bit easier even 18 you could double the wires you could go as small as 24 you notice as the numbers get bigger the the wire is getting smaller this is a pain in the neck to work with because it gets all tanked so go for the one on the spools if you're going to do very many at all okay so I'm going to use 18 this is my stone I'm going to be using a flat stone so 18 is good because it's a little bit heavier wire and it will be a little bit more singing chicken I would say what I do is I always start by using my needle nose pliers I start by just making a circle and that will just finish the end off and all you do all I'm doing is turning my my wrist so I'm starting with this now if I want to continue to make a circle or a spiral I just hold on to that and you can see I'm not pulling it real tight I can I can make kind of a spiral that way and I'm just I'm just doing it by feel it's not each one will be a little bit different it's not an exact science the tighter you pull the the tighter your circle will be I want to have a little bit of an open circle because I'm I'm going to be using this rock this done so I think what I'm going to do in this case is I want this to be kind of my my central embellishment but since I have so much room to work with I'm going to take my my needlenose pliers and I'm going to make a crimp looks almost like a safety pin doesn't it and that will just that will just add interest and you can see I can hold it that way I could hold it actually I think it looks pretty that way so I'm going to start by with this design and I'm just going to wrap the wire around until I can I can see exactly how how wide this stone is going to be I'm going to take it off the stone for a second and just pull that wire down it's it's kind of helpful to have your wire wrapping around and up and down because that will make it more secure so now I'm going to put it back on and you can see I kind of have a start I'm going to think in this might be interesting if I just push it up so you can see these you start with an idea you just let the rock tell you what it wants so I'm going to pull this down now to come up and I'm going to create my bail so in in the back I've I've Criss crossed in the front I'm pulling that up and I'm getting ready to create my bail now this is a nice secret to to do at this point so that I kind of like that design I think it's pretty I might curl it a little bit more but it's a good start but because I like that and I want it to stay I'm going to take my needle nose pliers again and I'm going to just grasp this part that goes around and I'm going to just give it a little tighten so now that's not going to go anywhere I can still play with this a little bit but this guy is straight so the next the next step I'll do it with if I were going to do it with the baler the bailing tool I would I would hold it like this and pull it around but since you might not want to invest in that I'm going to just do it with my needlenose pliers I'm going to just pull this around just moving it down as I go and I'm just creating where you're old you'll put your necklace through so once I have that I'm going to just make that and make a loop and you want to make your loop so that you're right at the top of your stone so I have it pretty tight back here and if I need to tighten it a little bit more I could just take that needle nose pliers and and do that again but I'm not going to do that until the end now this is where your blunt nosed pliers comes in you can use that to straighten this this is just an all-purpose tool that will really come in handy whether you're trying to hold something in place whether you want to squeeze the end you don't want to leave your jewelry with anything that has a an end that's going to scratch people so I have just a little bit extra so to have less to work with I'm going to just use my my wire cutters and I'm going to just cut that end off and now I'm going to use my my needle nose pliers to again make a circle it's easy to just gonna and now this one because it's at the top I will I want this to be my focal point so I want this bit to be just exhilarating to just take this and I'm going to make this one tighter so I'm just gonna you just hold it tight and you just keep see I'm pulling this one a little tighter then I pulled the other one said that so that I'm just having a real tight little circle that that will allow the other one to be really my focal point just going to come up a little bit more so he's really just an auxilary and so you can see how flexible this is now those guys are a little bit close together so I can pull this guy down and I think I'm going to tighten this one just a little bit more but you can see how having this come in the front just kind of solidifies that that back part so that your stone won't be slipping out of your wire so you can see this is just a fidgety kind of little thing but you could play with it and that's that's the fun part because you can you can make it just keep fiddling with it till it's just exactly what you'd like so let each rock talk to you tell it does it want oblong does it want rectangles does it want triangles and and all you have to do is use this to change your your angle to change your design and play with it until it just looks right for you

Channel: Donna Belt

Views: 186,933

Keywords:

Id: Hi_2OOMDt_s

Length: 9min 15sec (555 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 21 2015