If you’re a pack rat, like myself, then you just can’t throw anything away. You may have a stash of "left overs" that you plan to do something with someday. You’re not sure what, but you just can’t bring yourself to toss out those little pieces of wire or chain. In this project, I use a little left over wire and chain to create a pair of unique earrings. It’s a simple project, with many possibilities.
Here are the supplies and equipment I used:
I cut the wire in half so each piece was about 2 inches long. Then I just made a simple design. First I curled the ends of the wire (using the bent nosed pliers) and bent the piece in half.
For these earrings, I used 16 gauge, square, silver wire and some large link chain, because that's what I had. The main idea of this project is to use up your left overs, so you could use whatever chain or wire you have available.
Then I kept bending the wire so each curl passed each other and eventually ended up on the opposite side. This resulted in a curl on each end of the wire and a loop in the middle.
Next, I made sure there was an odd number of links on my chain. Eleven seemed to work well, but it will depend on how long you want your earrings and how large the links are.
Then I looped the ends of the chain onto each curl of the wire piece, closed the curls using my bent nosed pliers, and dangled the middle of the chain from an ear hook. (That’s why I said the links in the chain should be an odd number).
This is a nice earring if you wanted to stop here. But, if you want to add some color, you can add some beads and dangle them from the loops and curls of the wire by using some head pins.
There are many other possible designs and ideas you can come up with once you get going. So, dig around in your tool box for those odds and ends and get busy.
All graphics created by Tammy Powley.