Friday, March 9, 2012

Disc Earring Tutorial

This is the first part of the tutorial for making the disc earrings. To make these earrings I used:

Round Nose Pliers
Chain Nose Pliers
Bail Pliers/you can use a 3/8" dowel.
19 gauge full hard sterling silver wire
Files /or a cup burr tool for the earring wire ends
Decorations to hang from your earrings
Discs with a hole of 3mm
White Rubber Earring Nuts.




Bend your wire at a 90 degree angle. Grasp with your round nose pliers and make your first spiral.



Change to your chain nose pliers and grasp the wire as shown in the photo. Spiral your wire around several times tightly. Note: For each earring since I wanted the backs to be a mirror image of one another I spirled each wire coil in the opposite direction. Also, I am using full hard wire - this wire is not easy to bend - this helps the earring keep it's intended shape. You can use a soft wire but then you will have to hammer or harden you earring wire when you get to that point.



This is the secret I alluded to when I was writing about the Bead Soup Party. If you purchase or create a disc with approximately a 3mm hole. Into that hole you wedge (and it wil fit very tightly, they should fit tightly or or use a different size nut) a rubber earring nut. These nuts are the type you purchase to keep your french hook earrings from getting nudged out of your ears. That always seems to happen with me when I'm wearing my favorite coat.

Tomorrow I'll continue on with this tutorial and we'll finish off these earrings. It's a very useful way to make these types of earrings if you want the disc to remain in a specific position and centered in your design.

Enjoy!

1 comment:

Cherie Smith said...

Sharon, this is a wonderful tutorial--thanks so much for posting it!