How To Make a Sun Catcher Tutorial

[Music] do [Music] hi everyone this is gina today i'm going to show you how to make this cute little sun catcher with the springs blender treasure back of course like with all of these spring or all of the treasure back tutorials you can use anything you want that you have on hand these are technique videos so use whatever you'd like you can hang anything in the middle that you'd like it doesn't have to be this big pendant thing it can be anything you want some crystals kind of on a piece of chain like this down here you can do a lot of things with it you can use any pendant you want or a crystal whatever you'd like so this is what we're going to make let me get you a little closer so you can see it i think it turned out really pretty dangles really pretty it turns with the wind and this middle piece it's it's just really pretty so stay tuned and we'll make a sun catcher okay so we are going to make a sun catcher and you can use anything you want to use in this you do not have to use what i'm using but i'm using some of the things from the spring splendor treasure bag there was this big pendant and when i ordered it i really envisioned something different and so i decided i want to use it in a sun catcher it has little pieces of glass floating in it you can use anything that you want of any size that you want for your middle centerpiece of your suncatcher the way i'm showing you you'll just have to accommodate the size of your pendant with the wire frame that we're going to make so if you're using something small you'll cut less wire than i do and if you're using something bigger of course you'll cut more and that being said we're going to need some wire so i am using 20 gauge artistic wire and i have cut about eight and a half inches of of it jeez i don't know where my voice went on that one that was kind of weird and then i'm going to use a few other things so some of the chain that came in the box we're going to cut a few pieces you want a long piece for the top two or three pieces for the dangles on the bottom and i will show you during the tutorial exactly how i've cut those how many links i used and why and then we're going to be using some of the spacer beads four millimeter round little silver tone iron spacer beads we're going to be using some of those and one of the little hearts that came in the box anything you want to use in this will work fine just get stuff out of your stash and you can make it as a christmas tree ornament or you can make it as a sign catcher or something to hang off your rear view mirror whatever then i'm going to use some of the 8x6 rondelle clear crystals that was in the back and of course again you can use anything that will slide over your wire i have some of these little jingle bells that were in my christmas box that i never really used and i may put some of those on one of the dangles so if you still have your christmas box and you didn't use the jingle bells you could use those too i want this to probably be either a sun catcher or a christmas ornament and it'll go both ways so then i'm going to use some head pins and some jump rings and i've just got a package out of multiple different sizes and i will show you and tell you what i'm using as i'm using it because i'm designing this as i do this so get your stuff out get yourself out some tools so i've got a chain nose a flat nose a round nose some um flush cutters and i've got a nylon nose and you may not need this but i always have it out when i'm working with wire and let's go ahead and get started okay to start this project you're going to take your eight and a half inches or whatever size that you've decided you want to use if you're doing something smaller of course you're going to need less wire this is going to be the frame that's going to go on the outside of our um little sun catcher so what i'm going to do is i'm going to use a little cup like this now my wire has some resilience to it it's not dead soft so i can use something small and still get a nice size loop because of the fact that it will kind of pop back out so i if you're using a very dead soft wire then you'll want something real close to the size of loop that you want to end up with or a circle that you want to end up with this is fine for me i can just put it on here kind of force it into a circle and then you see it pops out like that for me and this like i said is artistic wire it's 20 gauge um get close so you can see exactly what it is and if you need to freeze on it you can so you know what i'm using and then i can put this in here make sure that it's going to work fine for me because i'm going to put beads on this so i want some space and i want it to frame my piece just right and of course this is going to close some so you want to make sure that you have enough room if you're making something smaller of course you can make a smaller loop or a smaller circle now we're going to finish one side of this so that we can slide our beads on i'm going to get my flush cutters and flush cut this wire on the end here just because it's not flush cut and then i am going to just take my round nose pliers and place them on the end of this wire and i want to bend this wire up away from the bead mat so if i'm laying this down i want to bend my loop up towards me so i'm going to place my pliers on it so that i will accomplish that and then i'm going to make a fairly decent sized loop so i want to be a little ways down on my plier and then i'm just going to turn until i can't turn anymore and then i'm going to reposition my wrist and continue turning again so all i've done is just kind of turn my wrist and bring it back down the wire so that i get a loop like this i'm going to close that a little more now i have a loop that's that goes this way and i want it centered so i'm going to take my plier put it on this side of the loop the closed side and i'm going to move my wire back like this now i have a loop that's more centered with my wire and then i'm just going to straighten it out with my straight nose pliers and i think i'm going to close this loop a little bit more by lifting it twisting it up and then pushing it towards the inside here towards the straight wire like that and now this is what i have now in case you messed up your wire a little bit you can put it back on your whatever it is you're using to um form it and just do that again this isn't going to stay perfect but it's going to have beads on it so it doesn't truly matter so what i'm going to do is i'm going to take a four millimeter round bead and i'm going to drop it on here and i'm just going to do a series of beads around this now if you're going to do it like i am with angles on the bottom you want to make sure that you put the same amount of beads on one side as you do on the other so you will want to make sure that as you put your beads on you make a pattern that you can repeat twice and then no matter if it goes all the way to the end or not it'll be centered and i'll show you what i mean so i'm going to put on three of my rondelles here and i'm just going to make a little pattern until i've worked my way to the center i've got three and then i'm going to grab another spacer bead and then i am going to go ahead and put my beads on and come back and show you exactly what i put on okay so what i have put on and this isn't exactly center but it's real close and like i said as long as i do the same pattern on this side even if it drops down a little ways it will be centered as it hangs so what i've put on is i put on a four millimeter spacer bead then three of my eight by six rondelles and then a spacer bead three more a spacer bead three more the space would be two more of the rondelles and then a spacer bead i'm going to set that aside i'm going to call that center and i am going to get a piece of chain now i've cut three pieces of the chain that came in the bag you can use any chain you want it doesn't matter but with this and what i'm using this is a figaro chain so it has little top pieces and then it has it has little links in between big links basically so for my longest angle in the center i have put on four big links with five little links so i have the five little link on the top here and that's what i'm going to use for my center piece and i want to drop that on i have the little link here so i want to drop it on at this point so what i'm going to do first is i'm going to open this bigger link on the bottom here and it doesn't matter if you don't have big and small links just use whatever length you would like this is about an inch and a half long and i'm going to open this bigger link on the bottom i'm just going to grab one half and then the other half and this is twisted links so they're kind of hard to open and close correctly so just be patient with it i've opened it some i'm going to grab this heart and i'm going to put it on there and then i'm going to close this link the best i can here and then this will be my dangle just like this and then i am going to drop this on here and i'm going to repeat my pattern now with these if you do not have the kind of chain that i have then you're going to want to drop on another one a shorter one in between these two beads first but because my chain is pretty good size and my beads are not going to be real tight i can come back and put it in between the chain after i've made my pattern because i want to center it and then figure out where i'm going with it but i know that i can just link this over the chain or you can use a jump ring and do the same thing open it up and put it on but what i'm going to do is i'm going to have two lengths of chain reserved for me and i've made them shorter than the other chains so this chain had the four big links and the five small links this i'm just having the big link i'm going to use towards the top i'm going to have three of them and three of the small links so that it's shorter than this one so basically you just want two pieces of chain that are shorter than the one that you've put in the middle so that it has a nice effect and then i'm going to continue putting on my beads here and i'm just going to do the exact same pattern that i did before so actually i need a spacer bead first and i'm just going to reverse what i did so i'm going to put this on and then i will put on my two rondelles and then i will put on [Music] a spacer bead and continue all the way up to the top when i get to the top we'll be back i'm just making this exactly the same as this side now if you feel like it's going to you're going to have too much wire at the end we can adjust that too and i'll show you how but just make sure you make your pattern the same on this side as you did on this side and we'll be right back okay so now i have done both sides exactly the same and this end it's just a little bit long now you want to it has to be longer than um it looks like it should be when you finish like the side is too long because you still have to turn your loop but mine is just a tiny bit longer than i need it to be to turn my loop and my end is not flush cut so what i'm going to do is i'm just going to gently cut this a little bit leaving enough to turn a loop and then i'm going to turn my loop exactly the same way i did before i'm holding on to my beads and i need to turn my loop up away from my bead mat so i'm going to grab a hold of it basically in the same spot that i did on my plier before so i get the same size loop and i'm going to turn as far as i can and then i'm just going to turn my wrist down and continue sometimes you can take the plier out go back in and finish your loop however you can just finish that loop it does not have to be perfect and then again i'm going to take my pliers to the back side of the loop and bring this wire over so that i kind of center that loop a little bit so i'm just moving this side of the wire now i have a loop that's the same as the loop on this side and this is what this looks like just like this okay so now i'm going to take my flat nose pliers and i'm going to bring my loops down just a little bit adjust this make sure that my loops are going to work well so just look at them if you need to bring them over a little with your flat nose whatever you need to do to bring them together so that when you hold it like this it looks like they're going to come together well and then i am going to get this is about an 8 to 10 millimeter jump ring and you can use either size it doesn't matter and 10 is going to bring it a little bit bigger around here and i i believe this is a 10. but if i could find my measuring measure eight millimeters in diameter so what i'm going to do is i'm going to grab this jump ring and i'm going to open it just twisting it open like this and then i'm going to put it on this side and then i'm going to put it on this side and i'm going to close it you'll probably get away with even a six millimeter but this is good just like that so now it's closed so now i have something i can dangle something on here so um first i'm going to work on the bottom here and then we're going to go ahead and um put this on so since this is sideways i'll put another jump ring on and put this in the middle like this but we'll do that in a minute so first of all i'm going to get my two shorter pieces of chain that i cut and i'm going to dangle something on the bottom now you could put two more hearts on the bottom if you'd like we have plenty of them let me see i didn't have those out maybe i'll do that let me grab a couple hearts i'll put two more hearts on here and originally i was just going to dangle some of these little guys down there but i think maybe i'll go ahead and dangle the hearts and then put something dangling on the chains we'll make some little dangles actually i changed my mind i'm going to use these little jingle bells you use anything you want you can make a loop with one of your crystals and and put it on here too and i am going to show you how to do that also but because we're probably going to make some loops and hang them on here just to make it more decorative but i am going to grab one of my little jingle bells and i'm going to find some small um jump rings and these are like a four millimeter jump ring three or four something like that and i'm just going to grab one of them twist it open see if it well this is big enough here i want to connect it to the small loop on my chain this time on my three bigger length chain with one end that has the small one i'm going to put that on the small end so i can open up the big end and put it on my piece so you can make your dangles in advance so you can just string them on too you don't have to do it the way i'm doing it but this is just kind of i'm designing so i don't always do it the easiest way so um let's see one two three is that shorter than that one yeah that'll work fine and then what i'm going to do after i have my little bell on here is i'm going to go ahead and connect it just so you can see how i do that of course you can keep it off put more dangles on like i'm going to show you or you can put your tangles on after you put it on either way whatever works for you i'm opening the bigger link i had it upside down so the rest of my dangle fell off but i'm opening the bigger link and i'm going to open it rather wide and then i'm just going to move my beads aside and push this over my piece see my beads are not real tight on here so i can move it aside and i want to put it right between the two beads here like this and then i'm just going to close it if your beads are real tight like i said string it on have your dangles ready and then string it on as you're stringing your beads on and i think i want this even shorter so i'm going to take this back off and i'm just going to make my links with two big ones here instead of three i think i want it to have a little bit more of a bigger look so i'm just going to get rid of that link and i'm going to get rid of this link here see if i like that because i want a big link to connect with of course you can use a jump ring too you don't have to take the little link off if you don't want you could just use a bigger jump ring and then i'm going to open this and then again i'm going to put it on here so all i did was remove a couple links because i want that to be a little bit shorter let's see if that's too short now now actually i kind of like the way that looks let me back off so you can actually see what i'm doing here i am just fiddle farting around not even showing you what i'm doing that's not very nice so that's what that's going to look like and then i'm going to go ahead and put another one on this side and we'll be back okay so this is what it looks like now and what i've decided is i still have a couple of these little hearts from my um treasure bag and i have an uneven number but i'll put maybe a couple on these little short dangles here one on either side and then i'm going to make some um dangles with my rondelles and see if i can hang some on maybe i'll hang one on each of these smaller little loops or something like that so i'm going to show you how to make some of these dangles and then with these little hearts i'm just going to use some small jump rings and put them on and i'll show you how i do that too first let's make a loop this is what we want to make to put on our um chain here so we'll see how that looks it might look funny but it might not it might look pretty good so i've got some head pins you can use a longer head pin i found some short ones so they're not very lovely ones they're all bent up and weird cheap cheap ones anyway these are a little shorter you can use the longer one it doesn't matter you just have to cut it down more when you're doing this but i'm going to grab one of my head pins i'm going to put a bead on it then i'm going to grab my flat nose pliers and just a tiny bit above this bead i'm going to bend this straight over like that so it gives room for the bend so you're just a little bit above that bend it straight over and then you're going to cut this down to about a quarter of an inch here so about right here depending upon how big you want your loop to be and then you're going to cut the excess off so if you have a long head pin you're just going to cut more off and you can always save if you cut a whole bunch off you can always save the rest of it and make eye pins out of them and then you've got this just like this and i'm going to place my plier i'm going down a ways on my plier because i have quite a bit of wire and i want a decent size loop and i'm just going to start my loop by just turning my wrist towards me and then i'm going to bring my plier vertical to the bead mat and turn some more and then when you're almost all the way there you can always take it out and finish it up just like that with the end of your plier just roll it over basically all you have to do and make several of these little loops like that and i will show you exactly how many i make but first i want to put some little hearts on here so i think what i'm going to do is i'm going to open one of these small jump rings i'm going to use like a three four millimeter size jump ring i'm going to put it on my little tiny heart that i have left and i'm going to go into my figaro chain i'm going to go into the first small link here and i'm going to go towards the outside of the link and i'm going to put this on so the outside i'm considering is over to my right it doesn't really matter i mean you can do it any way you want and try to close this little tiny jump ring let's see if that interferes too much yeah so what i did is i got it on the jump ring that's attaching my belt i didn't want that i wanted it on the one above it on the link above it so i'm going to open that and reposition it because i don't like it there that doesn't work so let me open this find my opening here take this off and then i'm going to grab my heart again put it back on here and i'm going to make sure this time i go up into this maybe i want to go into the bigger loop that's where i'm going to go i'm going to go into the bigger loop because i don't want it to lay right on top of my bell so i'm just positioning it however i think it's going to work yeah that worked and then i'm going to do another one up on the bigger loop that's attached to the piece itself in between the beads there i'm going to grab another loop and attach another little heart right here and this one went towards the inside of my piece so i want to try to go to the outside which is difficult to tell because these links are twisted so you think you're doing one thing and you end up doing something else so let me see and like i said it really truly doesn't matter anyway so i'm just going to put it on here get over there you so that's what i have so far and we can always put one of our little crystals on there too if we decide we want to we can do that too but i'm going to put the little hearts here i'm going to make some more loops and then i'm just going to open up the loop on the bead so the side is open here i'm just going to twist it open i'm going to decide where i want to put this and i think i want to put it on the small link here and then i want to close it yeah that looks okay so i'm just going to continue making loops and putting dangles on here so i'll probably put another dangle on this side of the small loop maybe i'll put two dangles on each small loop haven't decided yet but it doesn't really matter where you position them just put them on so that they lay nicely they're not actually covering your heart but they're enhancing it and making it look pretty and if you want to you can always put a crystal on the other ones too and i may do that too so basically just make as many crystal loops as you want and start putting them on and i will come back and i will show you exactly what i've done okay so this is what it looks like we get you in a little closer and basically all i did was put two jump rings on each small loop or each small link in between the bigger links put one on each half of the link so that when it dangles i'll have an even dangle on either side so i used six on the longer piece of chain and then on this one on the shorter ones i showed you how i put the hearts on and i just put one dangle on the small link right here because i had my hearts on the big links but one dangle on the small link i just mirrored them so if this one was hanging towards the outside this one's hanging towards the outside of the link and the same with the rest of it so this is twisted right now but this one is on the same half that this one's on and then i have my little bells so it's two hearts and a looped rondelle on either side here and that turned out really pretty looks really good of course do it any way you want you don't have to do it how i'm doing it you can use all different sizes of beads you can use different colors of beads it doesn't matter different types it it truly doesn't matter this is just a technique to show you but if you have the treasure bag and you want to make one like mine then you have that reference also now i need to work on my inside here i need to put that on there i didn't want to put it on at first because you could open this link up here and you could just slide it on with the jump ring but i didn't want to have to work all this with this in the center so what i'm going to do is i'm just going to grab another jump ring and i think i'm going to use like a six millimeter jump ring and i'm going to open it and you can see how this loop is laying the same way this loop is so they're both like flat against the bead mat i want this one to be vertical in between so that it hangs correctly so that's why you need to have a jump ring you can't just slide it on the way that we positioned this loop here you have to put on a jump ring and then put it on this jump ring and then close that jump ring whoops yeah gina that was graceful so again slide your pendant on the jump ring and then slide the loop that you created on the jump ring if you put it on the bead mat it's better it doesn't if you put your big loop on the this part the frame on the bead mat it helps you balance it so now this is what i have just like this and then i'm going to put a longer chain you can cut any length you want depending on what you're going to hang this from i've got a couple inches here probably three inches let me see yeah about three inches and then i am going to use one of these swivel clasps you can use anything you want to hang it from you can get a great big jump ring and put it on there and open close the jump ring but i'm just going to put this on my chain so i'm going to grab a jump ring i think i want a little bit better jump ring than that let me see i have some of these stainless steel ones so i think i'm going to grab a six millimeter jump ring this is a little heavier gauge than i was used than i have been using during this tutorial and i'm just going to open it oh maybe that was good flying jump rings now i have to get another one sorry guys but you know i do things like that all right i've got two out in case i fling the next one these are pretty tough jump rings so if you handle them a little bit wildly like i did they fling so i am going to take this link and put the jump ring on it and put it on the swivel clasp thingy and close that jump ring and then i'm going to grab another jump ring and i'm going to open it and put it on this jump ring right here and put this one on here throwing things on the floor now and try to close this really strong jump ring there we go and now i have either a christmas ornament or a sun catcher or whatever i want it to be this chain is a little too long i think i'll make my change shorter than that so that i can hang it but um this turns out really pretty i'll see if i can get a picture of it hanging and let me see if i can actually get this in camera a little bit better and let you see what it looks like this little tiny i had a little tiny heart left over i put that's probably what i knocked i could hang it on there on the jump ring hey no i don't want to but anyway you could do whatever you want in the middle you could take the rest of your hearts like this one and hook them together and dangle them down the center here instead of having this guy you can use any kind of pendant you want anything you just adjust your frame to whatever you put in the inside you don't even have to put anything on the inside you could have it just plain too like that but whatever you want to dangle on the inside you can dangle on the inside and you can make a bunch of um either sun catchers christmas ornaments you put like a little bow in here or something it would be really cute so basically that's how you make a sun catcher and i am going to try to take a pretty picture of it so you can sing it see it hanging but it turns out really cute i'm going to probably cut my chain down a little and maybe i'll hang it in a tree or something and take a picture and this is what it looks like laid out all pretty so you can see how everything looks all together and i hope you enjoyed this tutorial see you later bye [Music] you

Channel: GGC’s Beginning Beaders

Views: 13,318

Keywords: Beading tutorial, beading intruction, easy wire jewelry, easy beading, easy crafts, wire crafts, bead crafts, DIY sun Catcher

Id: 2NofiTehHZU

Length: 34min 42sec (2082 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 09 2022