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Earrings are always a nice gift, especially if they are hand-made.
These earrings are ideal as Christmas gifts, but neutral enough to wear all year round.
Even better, once you've got the materials, they only take ten minutes or so to produce the finished pair.
These earrings are ideal as Christmas gifts, but neutral enough to wear all year round.
Even better, once you've got the materials, they only take ten minutes or so to produce the finished pair.
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Signing UpStep 1Materials and tools
- Silver-plated copper wire (I used 0.8mm thick wire, which is easily sourced at your favourite online auction website, but you could use any reasonably-soft metallic wire. Just remember that non-coated copper can turn skin green).
- Silver-plated "fish hook" ear wires (I also purchased these online. Strangely, it proved far cheaper to buy a pack of five pairs than a single pair. Hundreds were even cheaper. You could use any ear-fixing you like, but I wanted the dangle effect).
- Narrow-nosed pliers (I used my Leatherman, but specialist jewellery pliers are available quite cheaply).
- A sharp pencil (If you're going to make lots of these, I would recommend sharpening a dowel, since the pencil "lead" can be snapped off quite easily).
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I did think of coloured wire, but Kitewife wanted them to be subtle enough to wear out of season as well.
Many wali-worlds sell colored wire. You can make the tree from green wire, and even add seed bead ornaments.
You can usually find both french hooks and clips on findings(hardware) there too.
Darice is a great source of craft wire. It has a corporate web site, Google it if you want.
The part that touches the ear needs to be "hypo-allergenic" the tree body is less important for this. A coat of clear fingernail polish can reduce "green ear" problems?
She also says they're comfy, and has been wearing them since I made them.
sunshiine
The wire is easy to bend (it's mostly copper, after all), especially with pliers, it was just a fiddle to get it wrapped accurately around the pencil (it took four goes to make two earrings). I did discover a hole in my fingertip afterwards, but I worked out that I had cut the wire at an angel, making a point.
(Bling contest? What bling contest?)
Maybe you could also make a note for people not to use nickel based metals either, because many people (including myself) are allergic, which I can tell you is NOT fun.
Great ible.