Monday 17 July 2017

Charm Bracelets


The wire wrapping here is quite secure for adding charms to a bracelet. When using jump rings however, it is necessary for them to be soldered closed. A jump ring will easily open if not soldered, so make sure you visit a jeweller to have the jump rings on your charm bracelet secured. An alternative is to use Link-Locks, these are very secure and can easily be fitted at home with a small pair of pliers or tweezers. You wouldn’t want to lose your charms because you hadn’t fitted them properly.



 


For the charm bracelet base we’re going to start with a length of chain. The chain is cut to the length of what you’d need it for, to fit you and this chain in particular we can either use flush cutters to cut the connectors apart or we can open them up. They’re like these little staples that can be opened and the chain, just take it off. So I’ll save that connector for something else and we’ll start with working with this piece of chain.


To one end we will add our jump ring, so open up the jump ring and put on the lobster clasp. We’ll have our base bracelet ready to go for making it extra pretty, because I particularly really love this chain. But with all the terms added to it is even better.


There we go okay for this charm that we’re going to add I’m going to take a head pin and cut off the head and that gives me a great length of wire to work with. Just cut off the head and now I’ve got a length of wire and on one end I will form a wrapped loop. Before I get to the wrapping part I’ll add my charm, so it’s connected securely to the length of wire.


Open the loop, slip on the loop of the charm, close the loop back up and wrap the wire to complete that wrap loop and securely connect the charm. Now we’re going to do a second wrap loop on the same length of wire so you don’t need to make this section too long, too many wraps, once you’ve got enough and everything’s secure we’ll trim the excess.


Tuck in that end and then form the second loop above the first. Again we’ll start the loop get it so that I’ve got a nice round at the top and then open that loop up. Add it to the chain, close the loop so it’s connected to that link on the chain and then finish the wrap. You’ll want to work it until it’s a nice neat wrap, trim the excess and tuck in that tail. Make sure that everything is nice and clean, until it’s as perfect as you want it.


gold bracelet and charms

Now the bracelet is ready for some colour. On an eye pin I’ve strung a couple of spacer beads and this beautiful crystal bead and I will form a wrapped loop. Now this is an eye pin so it’s a little shorter, so you won’t have a whole lot of length of wire to wrap with. You could also consider doing a simple loop and that would be fine too.


We’ll connect it to the chain, pick anywhere you still have a lot of room to work with on the chain, slip it on, close it back up and then finish that wrap. Then once that wrap is secure I’ll use the loop on the bottom that was from the original eye pin. Open that up and I’ll add a bead to dangle which is just a bead add it to a head pin finish with a simple loop; and that gives me a nice extended dangle as well as gives me a some nice movement, on the charm bracelet.


So we to this point we have our charms added using a double wrapped loop, we have dangles added with a double simple loop and then an additional dangle added with a simple loop on a head pin. One of the other options would be to on a longer head pin create a wrapped loop and add that dangle.


So we’re really just filling up the charm bracelet. Once the wrap is finished we’ll trim the tail, tuck it in, because you’ll be wearing this you want to make sure all the ends are tucked, in so it’s nice and neat, doesn’t catch on your sweaters or your shirt or your skin.


You can add a charm also using a jump ring, just open a jump ring slip on the charm and just make sure you orient the face of the charms to feed the same direction as the other charms, so that everything’s facing the right way. For some added extra texture and some movement, I’m going to take a twisted wire jump ring and add it over, well just choose this one. And it’ll just hang down nicely over the bead because it’s just big enough to still have movement, but not so big that it falls down over the beads. Just continue adding it until the bracelet is nice and full and in any pattern that you like. We’ll take our leftovers and we’re going to move into the next project.


Video Credit –  www.firemountaingems.com



Charm Bracelets

No comments:

Post a Comment

comments will be manually reviewed before publishing