It was Late Night Thursday at the shop so the plan was to do an easy pair of earrings for today's entry. On my way out i grabbed the last two 20mm raspberry colored acrylic beads that have been sitting around for a year or more. I've been wanting to do a long chain/bead combo for a couple of days and i thought these beads would be light and bright. Easy breezy lemon peasy! Stick a headpin in it and i'm done for the day.
Of course not.
The first couple of attempts were pretty standard: headpin, bead on top and bottom of large bead. All equaled BORING. Then inspiration! What if i made it look as if the chain is threaded through the bead?!? As if the bead is floating on the chain?!?
And that's what i did.
Supplies:
silver plated chain (from years ago! still looked shiny bright)
18gauge silver plated copper core wire
(2) 20mm acrylic beads
ear wires
The chain didn't fit through the bead hole so i made a double eyepin sort of deal with the 18gauge wire. It was a bit tricky making the eyepin because i wanted it to sit very close to the bead so the chain would look like it just continued through. So i made one eye, threaded the bead on and then flailed around trying to make the other eye. It wasn't a tidy process but i got 'er done by golly.
One caution: be sure you cover the chain, or wire for that matter, with your hand as you cut it. Pieces o' metal can go flying across the table with surprising force.
Then i opened the eyepins and attached the pieces of chain, and then opened the ring on the ear wire and attached the end of the long piece of chain. And voila! Day 9 is lookin' fine. Why didn't i add a bead to the end of the chain? Because that would have been PREDICTABLE!! These earrings need to go on a cruise to somewhere warm where you don't have to wear a lot of clothes so you can show them off against your skin.
And they really do look good on!
9 down, 356 to go...
No comments:
Post a Comment