Make Bead Earrings

If you want to start making your own jewelry, you can easily create a beautiful pair of beaded drop earrings to give as a gift, or to match with that special outfit.

Steps

  1. Find a headpin. Headpins have flat or rounded heads on the bottom, and are available in different sizes and thicknesses. They are available in a variety of metals to coordinate with your project.
  2. Add your beads. First, put a spacer bead at the bottom, then add the beads of your choice on the head pin. Experiment with different colors and styles. You can use spacer beads to separate colors.
  3. Continue adding beads until you have 1/4" to 3/8" (6mm to 1cm) of space remaining on your headpin. If you want your earrings to be shorter, use a pair of wire cutters to snip the headpin to the appropriate length.
  4. Use a pair of round-nose pliers to bend the top of your head-pin 90ยบ.
  5. Bend the top of the headpin into a loop using the round-nose pliers. This loop allows you to add a post or wire to complete the earring at the end of the headpin with the round-nose pliers. Using the tip of the pliers as a guide, form the end of the headpin into a neat loop.
  6. Add a French wire, before completely closing the loop post or other earring finding.
  7. Follow these steps once more and create a pair beautiful earrings!



Tips

  • If you don't have any headpins, you can also use a plain piece of wire. Form one end of the wire into a very small loop or spiral to ensure that the beads won't slide off, and finish off like any other headpin. Don't use just any piece of wire for the part that will go into your ear, however.
  • Make sure to leave enough room for the loop at the end of your headpin! This will vary slightly based on the thickness of your headpin, but 1/4" (6mm) will work well for a 24 ga headpin. Allow for a little more space if you are working with a thicker headpin.
  • Headpins are available in many thicknesses to accommodate different sizes of beads. Sometimes you will see the thickness mentioned by gauge (ga). In this case, a larger number (for example, 24 ga) indicates a thinner headpin, while a smaller number (for example, 20 ga) indicates a thicker headpin.

Warnings

  • Wear eye protection whenever you use wire cutters. While making beaded jewelry is quite safe compared with a lot of other crafts, a small snipped piece of wire can be propelled with a lot of force in an unpredictable direction.

Things You'll Need

  • Headpins (2)
  • Round-nose pliers
  • Wire cutters (optional)
  • Small spacer beads (4-8)
  • Variety of larger beads (3-4 pairs)

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