Wire-Wrapped Sea Glass Pendant
Intro: Wire-Wrapped Sea Glass Pendant
My friend and I frequently run to the nearby beach together and go treasure hunting (the treasure being sea glass or shells). I made this pair of necklaces, silver for her and black for me, because I wanted personalized friendship necklaces that would be unique to us. Both pieces of sea glass are light blue, which is perfect because blue is our favorite color.
The wrapping is very simple, and I just stumbled onto it when I was trying out various other wire-wrapping looks. It's basically a spiral of wire around the sea glass, and if you look closely at the pendants above, I switched the direction of the black spiral and the silver one (different slant direction) so that the necklaces would complement each other; somewhat like yin yang.
STEP 1: Materials
- wire (For this type of wrap, thicker gauge wire [probably 22 or thicker-- I used 20 gauge] is much better than thin gauge because the weight of the sea glass might warp the wire over time. If your sea glass shard is larger, use thicker gauges to match the weight.)
- sea glass
- pliers
- necklace chain or cord
- OPTIONAL: vegetable or olive oil + scrap cloth or paper
STEP 2: Polishing Sea Glass
To polish your sea glass, simply pour a tiny amount of oil (vegetable or olive) on your cloth or paper and rub your sea glass until the cloudiness comes off.
STEP 3: Beginning
Then decide which slant direction you want and position the wire behind the sea glass accordingly. From the picture above, you can see that my slant will have a negative slope (from top left to bottom right) (negative slope -- yes, I am that nerdy).
STEP 4: Wrap Number One
First wrap done! Take a moment to rest those fingers or shake them out; only a few more wraps to go.
STEP 5: Continue Wrapping
STEP 6: Last Wraps
STEP 7: Last Bits
STEP 8: Completion
Make another one if you're making a set for a friend like me. You could change the slant direction like I did too so that the spirals complement one another.
STEP 9: Jump Ring and Chain
VoilĂ ; a new necklace to remind you of fond memories from a beach.
12 Comments
jenise2000 10 years ago
watchmeflyy 10 years ago
Oooh looks amazing! Nice job. ^^ I love the contrast of the green and red on the lower sea glass pendant.
Piscary06 10 years ago
That's awesome. Thank you for the tutorial =)
watchmeflyy 10 years ago
Thanks for your comment, and you're welcome, of course. I'm glad you enjoyed this! :D
hblair1 10 years ago
watchmeflyy 10 years ago
Haha thank you for your comment and have fun! ^^
emilyvanleemput 10 years ago
These are great!
watchmeflyy 10 years ago
Thank you, Emily! ^^
Muhaiminah Faiz 10 years ago
Cute! I love this wire wrapping technique :D
watchmeflyy 10 years ago
Thank you! I love all your wirework creations so far! :3
Tarun Upadhyaya 10 years ago
Those are cute :). Thank you for sharing :).
watchmeflyy 10 years ago
Thank you for your comment, Tarun! ^^