Pearl ring tutorial

I finally got around to making another wire wrapped ring, and took pictures this time for a tutorial.  I used a cheap faux pearl, but you can get real pearl beads, and nice faux crystals at most craft stores.



The supplies that you will need are:
scrap paper
single bead
20 gauge wire
26 gauge wire
large pliers
small pliers
pen / pencil

First you will need to use a mandrel, or find something the same size as your finger.  I walked around the house trying my wedding band on different things until I found a marker the exact right size.  Next, I cut a strip of paper and wrapped it around my marker [hereafter known as the "mandrel".]  I slid the edges of the paper so that you would be able to clearly see how it was wrapped, but you really want it to be tighter.

Wrap the paper around the mandrel two times, drawing a line each time the paper overlaps.  Remove the paper, and cut it off at the second line.  You should have a strip of paper that is twice the length of your finger, with a line in the middle.

Fold the ends of the paper into the middle, then flatten it back out.  Draw lines on the two creases that you just made.  These will be the marks that you need, you can erase the middle line or just ignore it.  (I used some junk mail, hence the strange numbers.)

Use the paper as your ruler to cut the 20 gauge wire.  You will need two pieces of wire.   Use a permanent marker and mark the two outer lines on the wire.



Use your pliers and bend the wires at a 90* angle on both lines.

Flatten the folds with your pliers so that the two ends meet in the middle (like your paper did.)  At this point I lightly hammered the wires to strengthen them, (totally optional.)

Lay the two wires side by side on your mandrel, and smooth into a ring.   Make sure that the cut wires are on the inside.

Use your pliers to bend the ends up at an angle, to form the faux prongs of your ring.

Cut off a four inch or so piece of 20 gauge wire.   Bend it with your pliers, and then wrap it around the top of the ring three times.  It took me a few tries to grip the wire and wrap it around.

After the top is wrapped three times, add the pearl and repeat on the other side.

Use the 26 gauge wire and wrap the bottom of the band were the wires cross.   Make sure that all of the ends are cut flush and filed smooth.    Enjoy!

Faux Wedding Ring

Excuse my dry hands - it has been really cold and dry lately  (as I mentioned in my last post, cold enough for my rings to fall off of my fingers.)  I saw a design for a pearl ring in a book at the library, and decided that it almost looks like a wedding ring, with a clear glass bead in place of the pearl.  It serves my purpose of having a decent looking ring that won't be much of a loss if it flies off my hand somewhere irretrievable.

I used a faceted bead since I had it in my stash, but I know that they have some lovely crystal beads that look much more like diamonds.   Maybe I'll pick one up next time I make it up to the craft stores.  There are some dings in my wire, since I used cheap pliers, but if you have the right equipment you could make a really nice looking ring really easily.  I will attempt a tutorial sometime this week.  :0)

Make your own ring

Adding this ridiculous cold weather to the fact that I've lost a little weight, and my rings have been flying off of my fingers lately.  I would hate to loose my wedding rings, so I decided to see how hard it would be to make my own rings out of wire.   Couldn't be too hard, right?

I actually spent around two hours making this simple little ring.  I think that my problem is my tools: I have my husbands rather large pliers, and very cheap needle nose pliers.  [As a side note, I just realized that pliers is plural.  So how does one refer to one needle nose pliers?  A pair?  But it is only one. Hmmm....]

I don't have a mandrel, so I took my wedding band and walked around the house trying it on different things until I found something the right size.  Apparently, the Paper Mate W10 permanent marker is a size 9, right at the letter T in permanent.   In retrospect, I should have made the ring a little higher up, so it would have been slightly smaller than my ring.  My new ring flies off of my hand just as easily as my old one did since it is the same size.  Duh.

I used copper wire that came painted "dark blue."  I also had four real amethyst beads in my craft stash.   I wrapped my wire around the marker 3 times, and cut it with a little extra to spare.  I threaded the beads on, and thought, wow, that was easy.   Then I tried to wrap the wire ends around the bottom of the ring to hold it together.  Not so easy, at least not without decent tools.  30 minutes later, the bottom looked decent, although the paint had rubbed off of the wire where my pliers contacted it.  Not a big deal, no one really sees the inside of a ring anyways.

I spent the next hour trying to put a small wrap on either side of the beads, to give the ring a finished look.  Yeah, after I unwrapped/ cut off three pieces of wire, I decided that it really didn't need that extra little piece.  So, here is my lovely new ring, made using materials I already had that probably cost me $0.25 total.  I would much rather loose this than my wedding rings.  I do have a small crystal bead, that I would like to try to make a more standard looking ring before I go out tomorrow.  We'll see.