I was browsing through a very old jewelry making book I’ve got looking for chain ideas, when I saw this cool technique. I thought they looked like little paddles. In the book, they made a bunch of these paddle pieces, pierced holes on the ends, and connected them with jump rings. I thought they would also make some quick, cool earring findings.

To make these paddle pieces, you’ll need:

3 inches of round wire (I used 16 gage)
wire cutters
a ball peen hammer
anvil
round nosed pliers
jeweler’s files
some glass beads
2 ear hooks

1. Cut a 1 ½ inch pieces of wire and file both ends smooth.

2. Use the hammer and anvil to pound one end of the wires you cut. The more you pound, the larger it will be. I’m a wimp, but I had to hit the ends about a dozen times each.

3. You might need to round the ends you pounded a little the file.

4. Slip your glass beads onto your paddle pieces. (I had to dig through my glass bead stash before I found 2 that wouldn’t slip over the ends I paddled. So, keep this in mind when picking out your beads.)

5. Curl the end of each wire using round nosed pliers.

6. Add your ear hooks.

Is that too easy, or what? Of course, you could do what I saw in the book and make a chain, but I liked this idea since it was so quick. Plus, I love the way these earrings turned out.

For more great metal ideas, take a look at my list of Metal Projects. For wire ideas, check out my Wire Projects list.

Here's a printer friendly copy of this file.