Welcome to part two of my wire wrapped hearts tutorial!
In this lesson, I will demonstrate how to use the little hearts we made last time into super cute, ready for spring earrings. And I promise that this addition takes very little time and effort. You already did the hard part. :)
Wire Wrapped Heart Earrings
Materials needed:
A bit of 20g wire
Two fishhook earwires
Two pairs of pliers (round nose and needle nose)
Wire cutters
Let's begin!
Gather up your hearts from last time and get out the 20g wire.
Take the end of the wire and wrap it around the needle nose pliers, just like when we made the curls for the hearts.
Do this again, so that when you get back to the beginning, you should have two coils.
Do this twice more, so that you have a total of four complete coils. These will be made into jump rings.
Take the coils off the pliers and grab the wire cutters. Position the cutter so that the cut you make is in line with the beginning of the first coil. In other words, you are trying to make a little ring, so cut each one as close to the end of the last as possible. (Sorry for the blurry picture. I had a hard time trying to show this step.)
When you cut, it should look like this. Depending on how strong your hands are and how good your wire cutters are, the ring might fall away on its own. That is perfectly fine.
Now you have one jump ring.
Repeat this process three more times, creating the remainder of the jump rings we need.
Now we need to open the jump rings so that we can attach them to the hearts. To do this, grab one side of the ring with a pair of pliers. Pull the ring perpendicular to itself, so that you are not stretching or misshaping the ring in any way. You can do this with your hands or by using the second set of pliers.
Now pick up one of the hearts and feed the jump ring through one of the curls at the top of the heart. Close the ring by squeezing it as shown below, so that the ring lays inside the pliers before you squeeze. The ends of the ring should meet. If they do not, you may have to adjust the ring a bit to make it work. These are handmade jump rings, after all.
Do this again for the other curl. And repeat for the second heart.
Now we need two more jump rings to attach the fishhook ear wires to the hearts. So make those now. They can be any size you like, but I would recommend making them at least as big as the first rings you made, if not even a little larger.
Open one of the jump rings with the pliers. Keeping the ring held with the pliers, pick up one of the hearts and feed both of the attached jump rings through the new one. Do not close the jump ring yet.
Now pick up one of the ear wires and feed it onto the open jump ring. Close the jump ring, making sure that there are no gaps. You don't want the hearts falling off while you wear them!
Repeat this process for the second heart and then you are done!
And here is the finished product, ready to wear, share, or just simply enjoy!
I hope you all have enjoyed crafting with me today. If you try these, post a link on here so I can see all of your awesome work! Thanks!
Keeping it Krafty,
The Everyday Jeweler
