Tutorial Tuesday - Leaf Green earrings

Thank you so much for the lovely comments about the earrings I made with Sue's gorgeous glass headpins! As promised, here is a tutorial for them. Once I'd planned out what I wanted to do they were actually very quick and easy to make, but to make them even quicker you might want to substitute the silver rings and the ear wires that I made for bought ones. I turned my silver rings into ovals using an oval triblet but if you don't have one the design would work equally well with smaller round rings instead.

You will need:

• two glass bead headpins from Suebeads
• two silver rings - mine were made from 1.2mm wire and had an inside diameter of 13mm
• two 7cm lengths of 0.8mm wire
• mandrels - I used the body of my 24mm wooden doming punch and an 8mm mandrel
• round nosed pliers
• nylon jaw pliers
• wire cutters
• hammers and bench block
• nylon hammer
• oval triblet
• needle file
• sanding pad

1.  Wrap the headpin around a large mandrel as show.
2.  Twist the end of the headpin around the wire just above the glass to form a wrapped loop.
3.   Use your fingers to pull the circle of wire into an oval.
4.  Make sure that the glass is facing the right way - see, easy so far isn't it?

5.  Holding the glass safely off the edge of the bench block hammer the steel oval to texture and strenghten it. Hammering the steel would have damaged the hammers that I use, so I used the one I keep for hammering the disc cutter and doming punches.
6.  Use a nylon hammer to shape the silver ring into an oval around a oval triblet - I made these ages ago and they've been sitting on my desk for months!
7.  Check the fit of your silver oval. Push it thinner with your fingers if need be and hammer it.

8. Start the earwire with a small eyeloop.
9. Bend the wire next to the loop around a small mandrel.
10. Hammer the front of the earwire to strengthen it and to give it a more finished look.
11. Use flat nosed or nylon jaw pilers to flick out the last 5mm or so of the earwire and file the end smooth. Make a second earwire, loop on the ovals and there you are!

Leaf Green earrings available on the website here