Free Jewelry Tutorial

 

Headpin Mini Tutorial

 

I hate starting a project then realizing I don't have enough headpins to complete the piece I'm working on. Here is a quick and easy tutorial on how to create your own headpins.

In this tutorial I am using 1½ inch of 26 gauge wire. Pretty much any gauge wire will work and the length will vary in regards to the size bead you are using. I am using a 3 x 5mm bead. Typically you would like the wire to extend at lease ¾ to 1 inch pass the end of the bead when it is inserted onto the wire after the end curl is made. This will give you enough wire to create an average wrapped loop.

If you have any questions please leave them in the commend section below and I will answer them to the best of my knowledge. :)

Step 1

Step 1 - Prep and cut 26 gauge wire to 1½ inches in length.

Step 2

 Step 2 - Hammer the tip of your wire about ¼ inch in.

Step 3

Step 3 - Hammer nice and flat; make sure both sides of the wire are hammered this evens out both sides. Also if there are small mars from hammering it may smooth it out slightly. 

Step 4

Step 4 - With your round nose pliers curl the flatten tip into a complete curl.

Step 5

 



Step 5 - Gripping with the flat nose on each side of your curl, then roll your wire onto itself.

Step 6

Step 6 - Tightly curl onto itself 2 ½ times.

Step 7

 Step 7 - Gripping your wire just below the curl.

Step 8

Step 8 - Still gripping your wire, using your thumb, push your curl back onto itself slightly. This will even your curl onto its center point. 

There you have it! A homemade head pin.

Enjoy!!! 

Thanks for your interest.

 

First post for Year of Jewelry 2011

Cat Eye Pendant

I'm so excite to have joined YOJ 2011! It is going to be fun, exciting, a great learning experience and challenging all at the same time. For those who have not heard about Year of Jewelry it is where a group of jewelry artist come together (virtually speaking) and make one piece of jewelry a week for one year. They give you a weekly theme that you can use if at you choosing to help get the creative juices flow.

So this week's theme is Complementary Colors. As I explained in my posting I had a few hiccups along the way but all in all for the most part I'm happy with the design. I added a purple silk ribbon to tie the piece in with the weekly theme. Truth be told the ribbon is actually orangy red that I transformed to purple in Photoshop. :)

A little about the piece that I submitted, it is a 100% sterling silver with a beautiful 12mm round faceted citrine focal bead. To add a little more design element I used two small deep yellow tourmaline and two small clear smoky quartz faceted beads to try and help give this piece a little more dimension. It maybe hard to tell but top handle area is 3 - 20g wire wrapped tightly together with 30g wire using the Soumak weave or Plain weave as Barbara Berk explains on her resource page. After doing that weave a good portion of the length of the three 20g wire I attach the focal bead as I pulled the wire tight to my amazement the wire just cradled right around the focal. I continued the weaving in a little different fashion to add a little more detail. After attaching the accent beads I filed and curled the edges for yet some more detail. Hope you like and I'm going to try my hardest to keep this blog up with my weekly postings to Year of Jewelry. Thanks for reading!

Heather
www.heathermorales.com

Unique Wire Wrap Pendant for Baby Shower Gift Murrieta Ca

I was invited to my husband's cousins baby shower late last month. As I was going through her Baby's R Us registry and realizing everything was pretty much bought. I really wanted to give her a gift that would stand out a little more and was unique, being that she is blessed with a lot of friends and a very large family, I felt it was almost impossible. Then I realized - duh I make wire wrapped jewelry and pretty darn good. Still headed out to grab a few things for her soon to be baby boy for tradition sake. Then went to work on designing her a custom one of a kind necklace that hopefully in 15 to 20 years, when she come across it, it will take her back to that special day of her baby shower that she spent with all her friends and family. Which was awesome and the cake her mother-in-law made was completely amazing.

The necklace and pendant is 100% sterling silver, the beads are a mixture of new jade, purple aventurine and light turquoise that are strategically place to enhance the lettering. The "b" and the "y" are around 1 1/2 inches in length using more than one strand of wire for the frame. Soldering the center ring that each letter is connected to, I wrapped randomly (some what :-) couldn't be to random) the three different kinds of beads to add some more blue. Finishing it off I curled the ends to add a little extra detail and connecting everything with a little thinker gauge jumprings in case the baby tugs when she wears it.

Sorry for such a blurry picture. I was in a rush to get pictures and after uploading them to the computer most of them were blurry. :-(  If you would like to see more of my jewelry, please do not  hesitate to visit my website at www.heathermorales.com - Cheers