How to wire wrap pendant DIY. Wire wrapped stone pendant step by step tutorial for beginners. Handmade wire jewelry Valeriy Vorobev.
Today I will tell and show you How to wire wrap pendant from copper wire and stone beads. The weaving process is easy, so it is perfect for beginners.
Tools for weaving a wire pendant.
We won’t need a lot of tools. A small set of hand tools will be enough.
I usually use natural copper wire for my jewelry. I like to patinate the wire and then polish it. If you are going to patinate wire as well, you will need a special copper patination solution.
For polishing, I use electric machines with special felt attachments. I also use special polishing pastes.
You will need a gas torch to make the balls on the end of the wire.
A cheap gas torch will be good for melting copper wire. You will need tweezers to hold the wire while melting the wire.
You will also need sanding paper to grind the resulting balls.
To make a pendant, we will need some materials.
Let’s start our tutorial on How to wire wrap pendant. I used 1mm thick natural copper wire for the base and 0.4mm thick copper wire for the weaving.
You can use any other wire for making the pendant. And also, it isn’t necessary to make balls on the ends of the wire – you can leave the wire as it is. You can just bend the ends of the wires nicely or bring the ends to the back side of the pendant and fix it.
It is preferable to use a bead of natural stone. I have a 12mm bead with a hole in it. Make sure that a 1mm thick wire fits through the hole.
How to wire wrap pendant. Step by step tutorial for beginners.
Take a 1mm thick copper wire about 50 cm long. Pass the wire through the hole in the bead. Place the bead on the wire approximately in the middle.
Bend the wire as shown in the photo.
Take a thin copper wire and start weaving two wires together using any type of weaving.
Let’s make a loop for the cord or necklace – for this, gently bend the weaving.
Continue weaving the wire. As you can see in the photo, I have attached the weaving to the wire that comes out of the bead. Bend the wire around the bead and start weaving.
Fix the weaving on the other side of the bead as well.
At the top of the pendant, attach the weaving to the bottom wire as well. Next, gently bend the weaving as shown in the photo.
Before the wire gets too short, we need to make balls on the ends of it. Prepare the gas torch. Hold the pendant with pliers or tweezers. The wire should be placed vertically with the tips facing down. Bring the tip of the wire to the tip of the flame. Wait until the wire begins to melt and a ball will be formed at the end of the wire. Then, cool the wire in water.
Observe safety precautions when working with an open flame!
After that, the balls and wire should be sanded with sandpaper. You need to remove the soot and roughness on the metal.
After you have made the balls and sanded the wire, you can continue to weave. Don’t forget to bend the weaving nicely.
At the very end, do not forget to attach (sew) the weaving to the bottom wire. This was the main part of our tutorial on How to wire wrap pendant, but we can make the pendant even more beautiful.
In the photo below you can see the pendant from the back.
Patination and polishing of copper wire.
There are two ways on how to patinate wire.
Patination in ammonia vapor. I often use this method. Pour the ammonia into a glass jar with an iron lid. You need to make a small hole in the lid for the wire. Hang the item on the wire above the ammonia solution.
After some time the copper wire will start to darken. When the wire has darkened to the color you want, remove the item from the jar and polish it.
The second method of patination requires special blackening solutions. To patinate the wire you should dip the item in the solution. Usually, the wire immediately darkens in the solution. Next, just wash and polish it.
opper will darken over time. So, you will need to polish the metal again to refresh the jewelry. Or, you can coat the wire with a colorless varnish to prevent the wire from darkening over time. This is the end of our How to wire wrap pendant – I hope you enjoyed it.
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