Swirly Wire Encased Bead Pendant

After a bit of experimenting with wire, I came up with this pendant. I was quite surprised by how fast and easy it was. It's somewhat classy look can be influenced by whatever colour and shape bead you decide to use.

I hope you like it!

Step 1: Materials

To make a pendant like this, you will need:

- pliers
- wire (mine was 0,8 mm/ gauge 20)
- a bead

Step 2: Bending the Setting

Add the bead to the wire, just enough to let the wire go through. Mark the bottom of the bead by holding it with your nail. Bend the wire in that position to create a setting for your bead.

Step 3: Wrapping

Add the bead to that setting and start bending the wire up. Keep wrapping it around to make your swirl. When you're happy with its size, cut off the wire and leave a small part for making the loop. Bend the loop using round nose pliers.

Step 4: Twisting

Slowly start to twist the swirl into shape.Your nails can be very handy to separate the first swirls from each other, so they won't just twist with three next to each other but actually separated. Try to keep the distance between the wire equal on all sides. When you're happy with the amount of twisting, you can just stop and admire your work. I stopped when the layer the closest to the bead was in front of the bead.

Step 5: Done

And that's it!

I really hope you liked this instructable and found it useful. I would love to see the results if someone decides to try this out : )

Comments

[jprentice1]

ooh I would love to do this ' Thanks for sharing :D

[emilyvanleemput]

Thank you!

[watchmeflyy]

Looks great! It reminds me of the outdoor wire decorations that I see at stalls sometimes. :)

[emilyvanleemput]

Thank you!!

[hunter999]

Very neat job! It looks great, voted! :-)

[emilyvanleemput]

Thank you very much : )

[Abigail02]

Oooo that's really pretty!!

[emilyvanleemput]

Thank you!!

[Bhawya]

looks pretty..

[emilyvanleemput]

Thanks!

[Mondak]

I was wondering if the wire was so easy to bend, why it wouldn't just unbend over time while hanging? Is there a way to heat treat it to make it less bendy?

[emilyvanleemput]

I've found that the combination of this gauge with the hardness ( medium temper) makes it easy to wrap, yet doesn't unbend easily. I've been able to even use it sucesfully to wire wrap stones - those have been set to the test a bit longer than this one by now - and I haven't had any problem with it unbending. You could use harder wire of course, but then the wrapping also gets trickier. I think there is a way to heat treat it to do that, but I don't have any experience with that myself. If yuo decide to try it out, I would love to know how it works out.

[lindarose92]

I do like it a lot! :D You make it look so easy, but I have a feeling that making such a round wrapping by hand takes a lot of accuracy!

[emilyvanleemput]

Thank you Linda!