Tuesday's Tutorial

I am in love with this necklace...don't tell my husband!

This is actually the necklace I taught my sister Rachel to make. I recently took a trip to Utah, and let Rachel look through my pictures of jewelry I found that I wanted to make. This necklace I found at The Work Room. She decided she wanted to make this one- and so your tutorial for the week was born (or something like that).

Items you will need:

1. 20 or 22 gauge wire (I used 20)

2. Jump rings (I used 16, but that could change, depending on the length). I made my jump rings out of the wire

3. Some sort of clasp (I used a hook and eye clasp that I also made out of my wire)

4. Cutters, chain nose pliers, and round nose pliers.

Step 1: Cut your wire. I cut mine into almost two inch pieces. I cut 13 pieces of wire. You will also want to cut 2 pieces of wire about an inch longer than the others (so 3 inches). These pieces are for the ends that will attach to the clasp. You don't have to cut the wire at 2 inches. You can make them shorter if you want your beads to be closer together, or longer if you want them farther apart. But remember that if you make them closer together, you will want to use smaller beads, or your necklace will look cluttered. The pieces of the wire that Rachel used were shorter than two inches.

Rachel's necklace was longer than mine. Mine hits just below my collar bone, so she obviously used more pieces of wire. Adjust the number you cut accordingly.

Step 2: Using the two longer pieces of wire, you want to make a wrapped loop at one end of each. Then set them aside.

Step 3: With your 13 other pieces of wire, you need to take your round nose pliers and make half of a loop at one end of each piece.


Step 4: Next, you want to use your chain nose pliers to bend/squish the loop together.

Step 5: Using your cutters, you will need to cut most of the loop off so that you just have a small bend at the end instead of a big one.

Step 6: a. On one of your wrapped loop wires, put on a jump ring first, then a bead. Then you need to make the loop at the end of that wire as shown in steps three through five.

b. Next you need to take one of your other wires, stick a bead on it and stick the unfinished end through the jump ring, so it looks like the picture below.

You will continue to do steps a and b until you get to the end of your necklace and need to put on the other wrapped loop wire. To put this one on, you just put it in the opposite way through the jump ring, then put the bead on, and then make your loop.

Step 7: In the picture of the necklace, you can see that the wires are bent a little more than what you see in the other pictures. So, what you need to do is take the wire in both hands (my other hand was taking the picture), and with your thumb under the wire, make a small bend downward. Be careful not to bend it too much. If you do, you can just bend it back. But if you totally slaughter the wire, cut if off and make a new one, it's that easy!

Here is just a few pieces put together so you can see what it looks like.

Step 8: Attach a jump ring to each of the wrapped loops and the clasp. And then you're done! If you are using a clasp that opens, then you don't need a jump ring.

Okay...I really need your feedback. I want to know if this tutorial makes sense. It's one thing to show someone how to make something in person, but completely different to write it out and hope you get it. The most frustrating thing for me is not understand directions. Just ask my mom about that. So... Do you understand it? Do I need more pictures? Do I need better pictures? Do I need better instructions? Do you think that this tutorial would make it easy to make the necklace? PLEASE TELL ME!