Wire Wrapped Earrings Tutorial

Don't you love my owl mug (what the earrings are hanging off of)?

I have really been loving delicate, dangle style earring's lately.  I have seen a lot of these wire wrapped ones floating around the internet and on Etsy.  Being a lover of crafts, I couldn't simply buy myself a pair of earrings - I of course had to make them and share the tutorial with you!

First, your supplies:
-thin gauge jewelry making wire
-oblong beads (you want something that is longer than it is wide and preferably something with a corner or two, as that will make it easier to finish off - these beads that I used are sort of square shaped around)
-earring hooks the same metal as your wire
-head pins (not actual pins like you would use for sewing, these are for threading a bead onto)
-wire snips
-small round nosed pliers (my wire snips and pliers came in a set of mini jewelry making tools - I picked it up at Micheal's craft store)

The head pins, snips and pliers are not shown in the image... Oops.

Step 1 - Thread one oblong bead onto a head pin.  Fold over the top of the head pin to make a loop (to attach to the earring hook) and snip the excess.  Attach the bead to the earring hook using the loop of the head pin.

Step 2 - Now it is time for the wire wrapping.  It took me a few tries to get this right, so be patient.  If it doesn't work the first time, just unwrap and start again.

(1) Snip about a 12" piece of thin gauge wire and sticking a little bit down the hole at the top of the bead.  (2) Start wrapping around from the top down.  You want to wrap tightly enough so that each round of wire fits snugly against the one on top of it.

Step 2 - When you have wrapped down the bead as far as you want to go (or as far as the wire length will let you) you need to finish off.  Try to do this at the "back" of the earring.

Snip off any excess wire, leaving a 2mm tail at the end.  Take your round nose pliers and bend that tail around so that it clings to the corner of your bead (you can see what this looks like in the left image below).  That should hold your wire wrapping securely from coming undone and end up looking like the right image below.

Repeat the steps to make a second earring and you are done!!  You have a lovely new set of earrings to show all your friends - and when they ask where you got them you can say that you made them yourself!