The Beading Gem

The fleur-de-lis, a stylized lily or iris, has been used in European heraldry for centuries.  It is particularly associated with the French monarchy.  The three petals supposedly represent the 3 medieval classes - "those who worked, those who fought and those who prayed."  It is a beautiful symbol, one which lends itself very well to jewelry designs.

Earrings have always been my favorite type of jewelry to make.  They are small scale i.e. they don't require a lot of materials and are generally faster to make than say a necklace. So if you are still stuck making basic dangles, consider moving beyond those!  This fantastic wire wrapped copper triangular earrings tutorial by Alesand over on livemaster.ru teaches you how to make the frame with a little bit of metal work - filing and hammering.  Then it is on to basic wire weaving.

Alevtina Gersenko is an amazing Russian wire artist. Her tutorial shows how she creates t wire frame for this amazing goldfish necklace. Like many wire artists, the design is first sketched on paper.  This is an effective template for curving the wire frame.  The fins and tail are just a lovely collection of long wire loops which were later covered and connected together with wire weaving.

I previously wrote about Alana Fire's amazing wire statement necklace tutorial where this Russian artist shared the key steps. She also has a pretty wire wrapped bird pendant tutorial which is far less complicated! Like many wire artists, she uses a sketched design to help guide her wire work process.

Adding ribbon is one way to add color to jewelry designs. Cyndi Lavin of Beading Arts has a marvelous idea on how to combine ribbon and punch up the design with beads and irregular gemstone nugget.  Her wire wrapped ribbon and gemstone nugget necklace tutorial shows how she ties in all the elements!

There are so many different ways to integrate a wire coil into a bracelet design. This tutorial differs from the previous crystal embellished wire coil tutorial. This gold colored one has a fun informal wiring style which is easy to do. It is actually closer in looks to the the design when I tried a tutorial for an easy coiled wire and wire wrapped bangle that I wrote about a long while ago.

Ever since I wrote about the tutorial for an easy coiled wire and wire wrapped bangle, I've wanted to try a different approach. Back then it was bad enough trying to form a coiled wire bangle with 16G wire let alone anything thicker.  So this tutorial shows how to get the coiled wire look the easy way!

Gloria over on Domestic Diva Online has a lovely wire wrapped caged crystal earrings tutorial. It is elegant and yet not to difficult to accomplish.  She has a simple yet clever way to form the cage frame. The wire wrapping on the sides just adds a touch of elegance to her design. She has used briolettes for her tutorial.

Butterfly Hair Fork

Before You Go:

• Amazing Wire Wrapped Jewelry by Wire Dreamers
• Wire Work Rosette Jewelry Tutorial
• How to Make a Wire Wrapped Seahorse

Coiled wire embellishments to just plain wire certainly adds texture and elegance to wire jewelry designs. There are different ways.  This first tutorial for coiled and twisted wire earrings  over on the Kreativ Vagyok site is by  Erika Schneider. Here the wire coiling is carried out on a long wire. The embellished wire is then twisted and looped.  The beads are then wired onto the final design.  I would use a wire coiling tool to make the coiling go faster instead of just manually wrapping around the main wire.

French beading is a relatively easy bead and wire technique. But it requires stringing on lots and lots of beads onto a wire spool. You can speed up all that bead stringing with a bead spinner. The wrapping of these beads is a breeze because you don't really have to count the number of beads you need.  Just watch this pretty french beaded butterfly hairpin tutorial and see what I mean  - Part 1 and Part 2.

Are you new to patina work?  Then this how to is for you! You can easily patina and protect any wire wrapped copper pendants with just a couple of key products.  Antiquing copper is particularly gratifying because the results are gorgeous - the bits at the top contrast beautifully with the darkened metal in the low spots.

Copper wire woven designs are simply gorgeous especially when a patina is applied. These are not full tutorials which is why I consider them advanced ones for those of you who are already familiar with wire weaving.   This tutorial by Russian wire artist, Valerly Vorobev shows how the multiwire weaving technique is applied for this button pendant.  The instructor said he failed to photograph all the steps needed for a paid class so he is sharing what he has !

When you've seen one Tree of Life design, you've seen them all, right?  Definitely not. The creativity of wire artists knows no bounds. I keep finding new design tutorials as well as writing my own (see links below). Here is a new one!  This lovely wire tree of life pendant tutorial  (link is no longer available) is not wire framed but sits wrapped around a pointed crystal pendant - a popular shape with the new age folks.

I love using bail forming pliers and  multi stepped looping pliers because they create even shapes. Round nose pliers are conical so if you are trying to wire more than one item at a time, they won't be of the same shape. One will be smaller than the other.

There are so many ways to make wire flowers. As you can see from the links below, I love sharing the ideas.  This triple wire flower necklace tutorial is by watchmefly on Instructables. I like how she layered two tiers of wire work which gives the design more depth. The bottom petals are flat but the those in the top layer had the tips bent slightly up.

I remember when I made the classic wire wrapped ring without any bead a long time ago. I thought the resulting rosette was the coolest thing to discover. But have a look at this all in one wire rosette earrings tutorial (UPDATE : no longer available) by I Make Stuff. It is definitely cooler!

Owls are popular inspirations for jewelry making. But I have never seen an attempt to making wire owls this small! This wire wrapped owl stud earrings video tutorial  (tutorial no longer available) is by I Make Stuff. There is no soldering involved. Just careful sizing especially when forming the owl frame.