Hand-made Earrings

This Instructable is designed to show you how to make a pair of earrings I designed. It includes instructions on making your own chain from which the bead assembly dangles. I made the light blue earrings pictured here for my mother for Christmas, and the others for my wife, daughter. I also sold a pair, which fetched $25, covering the cost of all the ones I have made so far.

The harder parts of this Instructable are accompanied by videos of that step, which should be clear enough for anyone to be able to make these earrings themselves.

What you need:

Materials
- 20" of 22 gauge Sterling Silver wire.
Depending on the size of the hole in the beads,
you may need a few inches of 20 gauge for the assembly
- A few glass/stone/metal beads.
The ones shown are a good size for a typical ear
- Sterling Silver earring hooks.
You could make these, but they are hard to make match each
other without a form, and hard to keep free from tool marks,
which could cut your ears on the way in.

Tools
- Round nose pliers
- Flat nose pliers
- Wire cutters

Featured 11/5/2009
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Step 1: Crimp bottom end

Place the beads on the wire in order from top to bottom of the finished piece. Take a small bit of the end, say about 1/16" or so, and bend it as far past 90° as you can get. Then pinch it the rest of the way shut with the pliers.

Suffice it to say, you need to have a bead on the bottom whose hole is less then 2 wire diameters in, well, diameter. (If you do not have a bead with a small enough hole, you can make an eye-loop at the bottom to keep them on instead. Instructions for eye loops are in my rosary instructable)

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Comments

[beadydani]

This technique works best for me as well. It's a lot easier than cutting the wire at the beginning.

[growl111]

You have done well. Very pretty and inspires me to have a dash at it. Cheers.

[evey5268]

These look just like the earrings my mother makes for her jewlery business! Nice job! She finds these beads all over, but loves the bead stores in mid-town Manhattan, NY.

[stitchinditch]

I think the Hand-made Earrings are beautiful.. Such a clever idea! Thanks! stitchinditch

[mothflavour2]

Where did you get those beads?

[kqrpnb]

I found all of the above at a bead store local to where I work. They are actually between owners right now and have not been open for a few days. I am getting a little worried, as it is the closest to me. I have not foud their like on-line as of yet. -kqrpnb

[mothflavour2]

Cool, no I was just curious, because I work at a bead store in Vancouver, and we sell those exact same silver-plated pewter and mother-of-pearl beads.