Making Jewelry with Half Drilled Pearl Beads -- Page 5

This alternative design uses two pearl beads per earrings and a short segment of commercial chain along with two jump rings per earring.  The supplies required to make the earrings n the gold-filled metal shown are one pair of ear wires, (item 0117), four 6mm or 8mm 1/2 drilled pearls (either will work, in the picture at right we used 6mm), two segments of medium commercial chain each about 1 1/4" long (Item 2606 with the bright finish or 2904 with a finish to match our gold-filled wire.), two pair of the gold-filled bead cap for 1/2 drilled pearls (Item 3325),  and about 4" of 20 gauge round gold-filled wire (Item 3017). 

In making these earrings we recommend that you consider using your bent chain nose pliers to hold the bead cap finding during gluing.  Since the pliers have a spring to hold the jaws open normally, we recommend using a couple of rubber bands wrapped around the handles of the pliers to hold the jaws closed.  This effectively turns your bent chain nose pliers into a mini-bench vise.  In the large picture above-left you can see how the rubber band holds the jaws of the pliers closed.  In the smaller picture at right, you can view the how the tips of the pliers are used to grasp the small loop in the bead cap finding.  The enlarged picture at left shows a close-up view of the bead cap finding.  Use your pliers to hold the loop in the bead cap finding, while you spread glue on the post in the finding.  After you have spread the glue on the post, then insert the 1/2 drilled bead onto the post and allow to sit.  After a minute or two you can remove the pearl bead and finding from your pliers, but continue to allow the glue to dry overnight before proceeding. 

After you have glued four pearl 1/2 drilled beads onto the bead cap finding and allowed them to harden overnight, you are ready to continue.  Using the 20 gauge wire make four small jump rings as described here.  Use the smallest step on your fine step jaw pliers to make the jump ring.  By doing this the jump ring will closely match the size of the links in the chain.    Cut two segments of medium chain, each about 1 1/4" long.  For the chain shown here, our item 2606, we cut segments of chain that were 10 links long.  Open the loop in the bottom of the ear wire finding (Item 0117) and connect that loop to the 7th link from one end of the chain, then close the loop in your ear wire.  (This way the pearl beads hang at two different levels as shown.)   Opening and closing loops is done with your bent chain nose pliers as described here.  To finish these earrings, you open the loop in the jump rings you made and connect that loop to both one of the loops in the bead cap finding and to one of the bottom loops in your chain.  Once you have the jump ring attached to both the chain and the end cap finding, close the loop in the jump ring.  Use bent closing pliers (Item 4005) to help closing the loop if required.  Do this for both ends of the chain on each earring. 

These earrings make great birthday presents for someone born in June, as pearls are the birthstone for June.