Ten Ways of Making Handmade Jewelry with Wire and Beads     Page 42

In our WigJig web site we provide instructions in making jewelry by hand using wire and beads and several different techniques.  In this web page we will try to summarize at a high level the ten approaches we teach and provide links to our instructions on those techniques.  All ten techniques are relatively easy to use and are suitable for beginners although some are easier than others.  The ten jewelry making techniques follow.

1.  Our first technique is making wire components using our WigJig jewelry making tools.  This is our favorite technique and we describe it in great detail here in our web site.  Please select one of the following topics and select any picture on the resulting page to view our free jewelry making instructions. 

2.  Our second jewelry making technique is setting gemstones.  While this sounds like an intimidating project that requires years of experience, we have found several findings that allow even rank beginners to be able to easily set gemstones in findings and make gemstone jewelry.  The findings we recommend for beginners are called "snap-fit" findings and if you can pick up a tooth pick, you can make jewelry with those findings.  You can view our free instructions for setting gemstones here. 

3.  Our third jewelry making technique is called "wire wrapping".  In wire wrapping, instead of glue or solder, wire is bent or wrapped around itself to make permanent wire components, often incorporating beads or gemstones.  On our WigJig web site, we have many beginner's wire wrapping projects like the earrings shown at left.  Select here to visit our "Designs" web page and view our entire selection of designs.  We also have a book in our Internet store, "Moods in Wire", that provides good instructions on more advanced wire wrapping projects.  You can find "Moods in Wire" here. 

4.  Our fourth jewelry making technique is making necklaces and bracelets using bead-stringing.  There are two basic approaches to bead-stringing.  The oldest is stringing beads by knotting silk thread between each bead.  This approach is thousands of years old and was originally invented by the Chinese.  We have free instructions on making jewelry by stringing beads using knots here.  The second basic technique is the much newer approach to stringing beads and finishing the jewelry by using crimp beads.  The best crimp beads are small metal tubes.  These tubes are threaded onto flexible jewelry wire like Soft Flex and then squeezed with special bead crimping pliers to fasten, or fix that flexible wire so the beads won't slide off.  The advantage to the newer approach using crimp beads is that it takes much less time to make a necklace using this technique.  You can view our free instructions for making bracelets and necklaces using crimp beads here. 

Our ten techniques for making jewelry continue on the next page.