Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Tutorial: Squiggle Wire Wrapped Beach Stones


Yes, another beach stone jewelry tutorial. I just have so many lying around now that I am finding more and more creative ways to put them to good use! Although honestly, I like this design the best of all of them so far.

Here's what you will need for one stone link:
A round, flat stone (I used a tan/brown stone this time)
20 gauge wire, your choice color
Clear nail polish
Flush cutters
Round nose pliers

This is for just one stone link. If you want to make a necklace out of them like I did you will also need chain nose pliers, chain, a clasp (unless you make it really long), more stones of gradually smaller sizes, and you will need to make some figure eight links.

Here's how to make one link. First, coat the stone with clear nail polish and let dry.

Then cut a long length of wire, maybe about a foot long (that's about 30ish cm). Starting in the middle of the wire do this:
Weave the wire through the jaws of your round nose pliers, forming an "S" shape. I like to pretend the wire is a horse pole bending :) Do this multiple times until you have a big squiggly line, like this:
Then, as you see in the picture, squash it a little with the pliers so the squiggles are skinnier. This helps you be able to fit more squiggle on a small stone.

Place your squiggle at the center of your stone. You want to leave a bit of space on both ends of your stone, so make sure the squiggle is not so long that it covers the entire length of the stone. I was able to fit four little loops on my largest stone, but only three on the smaller ones.

Wrap the remaining wire around the ends of the stone like such:
The wire should be as tight as possible.

Trim down the wire a bit one the ends, but leave enough for a loop. Then use your round nose pliers to make a nice round loop on either side.
And here is your completed wire wrapped stone link:
I made a necklace out of the stones I wire wrapped. If you want to do the same, make several more, arrange them as you would like and connect them with figure eight links. Then add chain on either side of equal lengths, and attach a clasp.

 Here is my necklace:




3 comments:

  1. Thank you for the tutorial. It is an interesting design and yet pretty easy to do.

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  2. I love this they look like Lil footballs... You make it look so easy... Thank u for this tutorial....

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  3. This site is so entertaining. Artistic eye candy for anyone :-)

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