Hey kidzz!
I promised I would get on here and talk about wire wrapping jewelry so here I am.
Theres a few ways to wrap things. you can do a free form wrap around a non drilled stone or glass or whatever you like. Simply start your wire on the back of the piece leaving at least 2inches extra. wrap around in any pattern you like, trying not to overlap the wire on the front or back of the pendant too many times, then it will just look like wire spaghetti .
when you are happy with the wrap, finish it on the top of the stone where you left extra wire. tightly, wrap at least 2 times around the neck of the wire. (Or, you can just come up and finish with a hook of wire, the choice is yours) flush snip the excess of the wrapping end and burnish it down with a plier, so the end doesnt stick out and catch on anything.
Finish it off by twirling the leftover bit of wire into a bail. zig zag it or spiral or just simply circle it, it's all up to you.
The other way is to make a design with the wire first, a spiral or square pattern or whatever you like. Hold it to the front of your piece and then wrap the wire around into a pleasing shape, again, keeping everything as flat to the stone as possible without overlapping too many times, or at all if it can be helped. follow the rest of the rules and finish with a twisted or twirled bail.
Then you can wrap a drilled bead. you tread the wire through the bead from end to end and you have a couple things you can do. either pull a simple ring at the bottom to stop the bead from falling off the wire, pull lots of wire through it and bead it, bend it twirl it etc, or mix methods. if you leave any twirly bits, hammer the design so it gets stronger and stays put.
You can also pull extra wire through, and make a cool design with it and pull it up onto the front of the piece, wrap around a bit and finish at the top as described earlier. very cool look this.
Now, the other way to wrap is OLD SCHOOL style and takes infinitely longer and is best done with
some type of flat wire. either square or half round etc, but I have only done it with full round wire. time and patients are absolutely needed for this because it will drive you insane, but it is sooooooo cool when you are finished.
First measure the edge of your object and decide how many lengths of which gauge wire you will need to cover the entire edge., so, if your item is 1/2 inch thick, how many strands of wire will cover it from being seen. Leave yourself several inches extra on each end of the wires for bailing and decoration at the end of the process. measure from the center of the wire, depending on the size of your object, have at least 3 points to wrap smaller wire around your lengths, this will keep all of your lengths together as one wide piece of wire. when you wrap the smaller wire only use between 4 and 8 wraps always starting and stopping on the same side of the fat wires that will be the inside of the wires. use your flat pliers to pinch the thinner wires down and keep the ends flush with the rest. you will want to keep the thin wires as close to each other in the wrap as possible, practice will help.when you have all of your wraps done, CAREFULLY bend it all around your pieceand from the back of it, slide a butterknife or something like it, through the wires to pull a short bend in the back of the wires at a few spots. you are trying to make "prongs" to hold the back of the stone in place. do the same on the face of your piece as well, again...CAREFULLY.!
the top of the pendant or whatever you are making with this process, is kind of freeform. Once you close it at the top and bail it, you can use the excess bits of wire as you like, i have pulled it down in curved crisscrosses and twirled it as well as made spirals etc.
all of your ends can be sanded down to make them smooth if you like, but I find just tucking them with a needlenose or round nose or flat pliers works just as well. I use cheap felt to polish everything, it is just rough enough to scrub without marking up anything.
(this whole tree of life has been glued together, the metal to the glass cabochon and the Swarovski crystals to the metal tree)
you can also decorate your pieces with rhinestones and charms and things, but try to use good crystal not acrylic. E6000 or other jewelry glue works beautifully as an adhesive! WARNING...DOES NOT STICK WELL TO PLASTICS AT ALL!!! I use a plastic bed tray to do most of my jewelry, it's cheap and travels well, i also pull a glob of E6000 onto it to use for my rhinestones. when i get too much on the tray, I just peel it off, no problem. So be careful if you are using plastic items of any sort.
So, there you have it. This was a VERY condensed wire wrap tutorial, but all of the absolute basics are there. now get wrappin and let me know how it works out fer ya!
Damiana!
