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Making jewelry can be a very enjoyable hobby. It can also, easily turn into a profitable side- or full-time business. The easiest way to get started is to make a pair of earrings with some inexpensive bits and pieces. As your skill develops, you will want to experiment with precious metals and valuable stones and beads.
You will need a few tools to get started. Small pliers made for jewelers can be bought at craft stores, on line, or from catalogs by mail-order. You will need a pair of chain-nose pliers, a pair of side cutters, and a pair of round nose pliers. To save money, you can get rosary pliers which combine side-cutting with round tips for making curves and loops.
The very easiest way to start out making earrings is to purchase a package of head pins and a package of ready-made ear wires. Head pins are snippets of wire with little flat buttons on one end to keep the beads on. They are perfect for learning technique as you can buy 100 of them in gold or silver color for a few dollars. Get them about 1 ½ to 2 inches long. Wires for pierced ears come in several different styles. The least expensive ones will be very plain French-style wires without any kind of closing. French wires can get very fancy, but you can make these yourself once you become proficient at working with metal wire and tools.
In addition to tools and ear wires you will need something to put on them. The very easiest way to start is with beads. Beads can be purchased at craft stores in strings or in packets of smaller quantities. Buy a few that you like, keeping in mind that earrings usually come in pairs. It is possible to spend quite a lot of money on beads as there are hand-made glass beads and beads of precious and semi-precious gemstone material. Don’t forget about pearls, either. Fresh water pearls are fairly inexpensive and you only need a few to make a couple pairs of earrings.
Assemble your tools, wires, head pins, and beads at a table with a good source of light. Start by making the most simple kind of dangling bead earring, a single bead on a head pin. Slip a bead onto a head pin, cut off the excess with your wire cutters and, using your round nose pliers, make a round loop at the top with the remaining wire.
Grab the end of the wire with your round nose pliers and twist the wire around the tip of the pliers. It will take a few trials until you know exactly how much wire you need to make that loop. Consider this part of the learning curve and rejoice that you did not buy silver or gold to learn on. By the time you are about half way through your cheap gold-colored head pins, you should be pretty good at making a perfect round loop atop the bead.
A little practice should have you turning out nice smooth top loops with the end meeting the straight part of the pin almost perfectly. When you are satisfied with your first effort, make another to match it and proceed to attaching to the ear wire.
If you purchased the kind of ear wires that have little jump rings at the end, all you have to do is slip the top of the head pin through the jump ring and close the ring using your chain nose pliers. Always open and close jump rings by bending the metal to the left or right of the opposite end until both ends meet perfectly. Never pull a ring open by spreading the ring into an oval. This will ruin the ring and you may not be able to fix it later.
If you have the kind of ear wires that don’t have jump rings and are just straight wire, first determine which end goes through the ear. The part that goes through the ear should be long and slightly curved away. The end to which you will fasten the bead will be fairly straight. Begin by bending a loop on the ear wire as you did on the head pin. Do both ear wires one after another and try to get them exactly the same. When you are satisfied, open each loop by grasping it in the chain nose pliers and twisting a bit to the side, just enough to slip the loop from the head pin through. Close the loop the same way and take a few moments to make sure both loops are snugly closed.
You have now made a pair of earrings. Keep practicing your technique of loop making and vary the number of beads, type and size to create different effects. As your confidence builds, you will want to start working with silver and gold. You can purchase all findings in silver and gold or you can make your own findings with wire.
The best way to start is with 20 gauge brass wire. Using the same tools, practice duplicating French wires by bending the wire yourself. You will want to smooth off the cut ends with a fine file or emery paper. Learning how to bend simple jewelry shapes yourself will save you money on ready-made ear wires and allow a certain amount of creative freedom.
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