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Saturday, 2 July 2011

Tutorial: Wire-Wrapped Crystals necklace

For my birthday (a few months ago now) my fabulous friend Shirley gave me a cute little set of tumbled crystals. The moment I saw them, I thought, ‘Hey, I could make something awesome with these!’
Of course, with a whole load of other projects on the go, they ended up sitting on top of my jewellery-making box--until this week, when I decided to sit down and get crafting!

A couple of hours later, I had this necklace!

It was pretty fiddly to make, but I’m pleased with the results.

Some might remember the wire-wrapped crystal pendants that I made before. This necklace used some of the same techniques. I used two gauges of wire because the thicker was good for making loops but the thinner was better for wrapping.

Here’s a quick tutorial!


Time needed: approx 1.5-2 hours

You’ll need:
Assortment of small crystals
2 gauges of wire (thick and thinner)
Jump rings
Chain
Clasp (not pictured)
Round nose pliers
Flat nose pliers
Cutters
Patience!



1. Take the thicker gauge wire and curl over the end to make a loop. Then wrap it once around the crystal. Cut off the excess and make a loop from the other end.
Don’t worry if the crystal slips out of the wire at this stage.



2. Use the thin gauge wire and wrap the crystal so that the thicker wire is held securely and the crystal doesn’t slip from any of the wire. (Check out my agate crystal necklace tutorial for extra tips!)



3. Repeat for all the crystals and decide the order you want them to be on the necklace.



4. Join the crystals together using jump rings.



5. Add a length of chain to each side and attach a clasp.



6. Go show off your necklace!


Going to be linking to the fab parties in my sidebar! 

2 comments:

Reading all your sweet comments makes me happy! :) I appreciate each and every one and try to reply to all that I can!