Butterflies have always been popular. They look nice on barrettes, attached to bobby pins, or worn as earrings or pendants. With a little craft wire and a few beads, you can make your own butterflies to add to your own hair accessories or jewelry. If you tried my spider or bunny project, you’ll find the techniques similar.
You’ll need:
approx. 12 inches 24 gage craft wire
2 - 6mm beads (Czech crystals work well)
1 size 6 Czech bead
60 seed beads
bent nosed or flat nosed pliers
round nosed pliers
wire cutters
2. Slip on one 6mm, one size 6, and one 6mm bead.
3. Use round nosed pliers to make a loop on the end of the 3 beads.
4. Trim off excess wire and use your fingers or pliers to press the loop up against the bottom of the beads.
5. Wrap left over wire under the bottom of the first 6mm bead so that there is about 1 inch of wire on one side and 8 inches on the other.
6. Use bent or flat pliers to wrap and tuck the 1 inch piece of wire.
7. Slip 20 seed beads onto the larger wire and form a loop by wrapping the wire around and under the first bead again and end up so the wire is on the opposite side of your first wing.
8. Repeat step 7 for the second wing.
9. Slip on 10 seed beads, loop, and wrap.
10. Repeat step 9 on opposite side.
11. Wrap wire around the butterfly body until it feels secure.
12. Finish by trimming excess wire, and use pliers to tuck in or flatten any wires sticking out.
To make your butterfly look like it’s flying, bend its wings up. Attach top loop to ear hooks or slip through a chain. If you want to add it to a hair accessory, instead of making a wrapped loop at the top, I would just make a loop and flatten it against the bead as described in steps 3 and 4 above. Then use some craft wire to attach the butterfly to your barrette, comb, or whatever.
Here's a printer friendly copy of this file.
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