Getting Started with Wire Jewelry

1. Introduction: Katrina here and I want to welcome you to this class. Here we will be looking at some of the most simple and basic things that you need to know about wire wrapping jewelry. There are so many different ways to make jewelry out of wire, but I wanted to show you what I do and what works for me. And hopefully that can work for you too. After learning about the basic uses of the pliers and tools, as well as learning a little bit about the materials that we will be using for wire jewelry and using the techniques that you just learned, we will create two funds statement rings, which I hope you will enjoy making. After watching this class, you will be totally prepared to go ahead and watch my other classes and create even more wire jewelry. Now let's jump into this class so you can learn how to make wire jewelry that has like a wildflower, beautiful, unique and timeless. Thanks for watching. 2. Jewelry Basics: Pliers: To begin, we're going to look at five types of jewelry pliers and the four basic ones that I use. First off, we're going to be looking at a pair of nylon jaw players. These are what we use to strain or smooth out wire while protecting the wire or the plating on the wire because of the plastic cover on the jaw of the player. Next step is a pair of flush cutters or wire cutters, which is pretty straightforward. We use these to cut the wire. Now we're going to look at a pair of needle nose pliers. These are tapered, being wider at the base and narrower at the tip. With these, we can create a wide range of loop sizes. Next step we have a pair of flatness players which are also tapered from the base to the tip. This particular set has a place to cut wire and we use it to bend right angles into the wire, as well as crimping and tightening the wire. Lastly, is a multi-tool and this combines multiple types of pliers. It not only has the wire cutter, but it also has a small place for a flat nose pliers, and then it has the needle nose point. This tool is really useful for a beginner because it combines multiple pliers into one. And this is what I started with. As you can see, it's pretty worn out. I use this one for quite a few years before I finally switched to the individual sets of players. Obviously, it does have its drawbacks because the needle nose do not go all the way down to the base. You can't create as wide a range of loops. And the same goes for the flat section of the pliers. With a separate set of flatness players, you would be able to create a wider range of small, tight right angles. Now we're going to just create a small example of what might be a head pin. And I'm going to go over how we use each set of pliers. So first we're going to use the nylon job players to straighten the wire. And we do that by placing the wire in the pliers and holding it tightly, draw it across towards the end of the wire. Now we're going to use the needle nose pliers to create the loop of the head pen. And picking which size I want the loop. That is where I will place the wire in the pliers and then bend it around. Another use for the needle nose pliers is to hold the shape of the loop while we wrap the other end of the wire around. Once you've grabbed the wire as far as you can go with your fingers and it is too stiff to finish wrapping. We will grab the flat nose pliers to help finish it out. You can hold it by placing the needle nose pliers into the loop or holding across the loop as I am here. And then we will use the flat nose pliers to finish wrapping the wire around and tightening it against the wire. Once we have secured the spiral onto the wire, we will use the flat nose pliers to tighten the spiral against itself. Now we're going to create what would be the head of the head pin using the flat nose pliers, we're going to create a bend in the wire in the very tip of the pliers. And then using the flush cutters, we will cut off the extra wire. Using the flatness players. We will flatten and then tighten the end closed. You won't want to miss the rest of the videos in this class because I will be giving more examples of how to use these pliers. 3. Jewelry Basics: Wire: Next, let's talk about some of the main things that you need to know about jewelry wire. Jewelry wire is colored either by the metals it is made out of, or it has a permanent plating or coating. The silver gray and rose gold wire, which I have here, have a coating for the color. This means that the center of the wire is likely going to be a different color from the plating. And you will need to be somewhat careful to not expose the base metal. Solid copper and solid brass wire like this. Here are examples of wire that do not have a plating. These wire types get their color from the metals that they are made of. When talking about the gauge of wire, we are referring to the size or thickness of the wire. The gauge is marked by numbers. The smaller the number, the thicker the wire, while the larger the number, the thinner the wire. Here are three different gauges of wire. The largest is in 18 gauge, followed by a 20 gauge wire and a smaller 22 gauge. While the gauge will not change, the hardness or timbre of wire is affected by the metal that the wire is made of. For example, this one is a silver plated copper wire and is more pliable and easier to bend than this solid brass wire, even though they're the same gage. And this is because copper is a softer metal than brass. So keep this in mind when choosing your wire. And to wrap it up, I want to mention that my favorite wire to work with is this solid brass wire in a 20 or an 18 gauge. It is a lovely gold color, is durable and it is a great wire for beginners. I hope this can help you to get started with jewelry wire. And now I'll see you in the next video. 4. Jewelry Basics: Tools and Findings: Here are a few other items that I use when creating jewelry. First-off is a number two pencil that is circular in shape. I find that this is just the right size for creating an air wire and also is great for creating very small hoop earrings. Then we have a file or sandpaper which we use to smooth down the ends of the wire. Next we have a six-inch ruler, which is very useful to have an in many of my videos, I give you a predetermined length of wire which you can measure on a ruler for that project. Having a ring mandrel is also very useful. We can use this not only to pent brings into shape, but we can also use it to wrap wire for hoop earrings or any other circular object that we need to make. You can find them in singular ring sizing as well as in a tapered shape like this, where you can create multiple sizes from one ring mandrel. It's also very useful to have a good craft glue. We can use this to secure thread or beads onto a wire when we need a little extra hold. Now here we have some of the most basic jewelry findings and the ones which you will most often or most likely use in my videos. All of these things can be made out of wire, but sometimes it is useful to have them already made. First off, we have a classic earring shape and this is called a French hook. They come in different styles as well as different metal types. Next we have jump rings, and these also come in different colors, as well as a large variety of sizes. Lastly, we have a basic head pin, which you can see it has the head and then a long shaft, which they do come in different lengths, as well as a couple of different colors. Here's one in antique brass color. And you can see it actually has a fancy head on the pin, which there are options like that out there. While there are a ton of different options of jewelry findings, these are the ones that I use most often when creating buyer jewelry. 5. Using Needle-nose Pliers: Now that we have gone over all of the pliers, we are going to look specifically at the needle nose pliers and smoke the things that we can make using them. I'm just going to use a 20 gauge solid copper wire for these examples. Before beginning wrapping, I always like to smooth out the wire real quick with the nylon jaw players. First we are going to create a basic loop shaped by grabbing the wire in our pliers and giving it a twist to create a circle. And then we're going to hold it at the base and draw the long end of the wire down so that it is centered under the loop. Now we're going to make a variation of a loop by holding the wire in our pliers and bending it straight over to create a 90 degree turn and holding it on that side, we will then place the wire into the pliers. And depending on what size you want the loop to be, is where you will place the wire into the pliers. And then we will wrap the long end of the wire back around in the opposite direction to create the loop. Placing the pliers back into the loop, we will use them to hold the loop in place while we wrap the long end of the wire around several times to create a spiral. Once we have wrapped the wire as many times as we want, we'll just take the wire cutters and snip it off. Another thing that these players are useful to use for is making jump rings. Placing the wire in the pliers, we'll wrap it all the way around until the end overlaps. And then using the wire cutters, we will cut the wire off flush to the first end. A good tip you should always remember when opening jump rings is that you should push the ends away from each other when opening it and not pull the jump ring apart. And then to close it, you push the ends back together. Because of the tapered shape of the needle nose pliers, we can create a wide range of sizes of loops. This large jumping I wrapped at the very base of the pliers. And then I wrapped a medium-sized jump ring in the middle of the pliers. And I also created a very small jump ring and the tip of the pliers. Now that we have gone over some of the things that we can create with these pliers. We're going to create a fun ring using the needle nose pliers. First off, you're going to need a ring manual and the size of your choice, I chose a size seven. And then we're going to be using this brass wire in a size 18 gauge, which is a nice heavy wire to use for rings. After straightening the wire, we're going to place it into our needle nose pliers about a quarter of an inch from the tip of the player. And we're going to wrap it into a loop. Next, we are going to bend their long end of the wire up alongside the loop that we just created. Now we're going to create the back-and-forth squiggle shape of the ring. Placing the pliers back into the loop, we're going to bend the wire directly over to the right. And then taking the pliers out of the loop, we're going to turn them around, place the wire back into the pliers at the same depth, into the tip of the pliers, and then bend the wire again into the opposite direction. Now we're just going to repeat this back-and-forth motion until it's the length that we need to wrap around the ring mandrel size that we have always holding the wire in the same place on the players so that each loop or bend rather in the wire is always about the same size. Once you think you've been enough of the pattern into the wire, you can go ahead and take the ring mandrel, place the wire on it and wrap it around to check the size and see if you need to wrap the wire any further. Here you can see it looks like I can add one or two more bins into the wire before I need to create the loop. So unwrapping it from the ring mandrel, we're going to grab the needle nose pliers and create a few more bins. Making sure that I placed the wire into the buyers at the same depth as when I created the other bins. Now that we have finished adding the bends into the wire and it fits on the ring mandrel. We're going to go ahead and create a loop on the opposite end from the first one. We're going to take that long end of the wire and bend it upwards to match the same angle as the other end wire. Now we can place the wire into the pliers and wrap the wire all the way around to create the loop. Then we're just going to take the wire cutters and snip that wire off. Now we're going to take the needle nose pliers again and at the very base, place the loop into them and make sure that it is flat and straight. Now that we have closed off both ends and made them into loops, we can place it onto the ring mandrel and create the shape of a ring. You may find that this heavy of gauge of wire likes to spring back even though you've pressed it tightly onto the ring mandrel. So you can slide it off and use your fingers to press it more firmly into the size that you want. Because the ends are left open. That means this ring is adjustable so we can press it more tightly together to fit on a smaller finger. And then we can also pull them back apart to fit on a larger finger. I hope you had fun making this ring, and I'll see you in the next section. 6. Using Flat-nose Pliers: Lastly, we will be looking at how to use the flat nose pliers. Because of the flat face of these pliers, we use them to create sharp right angles and bins in the wire. We can even use these pliers to straight out wire again and pressing smooth. And Ben, that's in the wire that we don't want there. Here's an example of how you might bend a triangle shape into the wire. Placing the wire and the same depth into the pliers every time you bend, it helps to keep the size all equal in length in whatever shape you're creating. Placing the wire into the very tip of suppliers, we will bend it over and create U-shape. Then we will pinch that U-shaped close to create what would be a head pen? Or maybe you just want to finish off the wrong end of a wire. Here, we're going to create a square and a good tip to keep in mind when bending right angles or any sharp angle into a wire is to bend the wire past the point of the angle that you want it to be and then bring it back as this helps create a more definitive angle in the wire. Not all flat nose pliers have this feature of a wire cutter, but this one does and it's useful to have. We can also use these pliers to help secure a wire wrap. To wrap a spiral. We would place this loop into the pliers and holding your securely use our fingers to wrap the wire around the other wire or object that we are wrapping. We can also use these pliers to tighten the spiral, making sure that there are no gaps. And to help finish off this wrapping, we can use the nylon jaw pliers to hold the loop securely while we use the flat nose pliers in our other hand to finish tightening down that wrap and complete the spiral. And then as I just showed you a minute ago, we can use the pliers to tighten the spiral together to make sure that it is secure and there are no gaps in the wire, as well as securing that end against the wire itself. Here's a quick tip to help you get the sides of whatever shape you are bending to be all the same length. And that is to use a piece of washi tape and place it in your pliers at the depth of what you want, the length of the sides of whatever shape you are wrapping. It will just take a small piece of washi tape and then place it into the pliers at whatever depth you choose for the length of side you need for whatever project you are creating. Once we have secured the tape in the jaw of the players, we can now go ahead and get into creating the ring that we're making in this class. We went to begin with a smooth bass. So we're going to take the nylon jar players and strain out the wire to begin creating the ring itself. We're going to start by creating the square. We're going to place the wire into the pliers just above the place where we marked it with our tape. And then we're going to bend it over into a right angle, bend in it passed, and then bringing it back so that it creates a nice sharp bend. After creating this first band, we will again place the wire in the same place in the pliers just above the tape and create another bend in the wire to create our square. And continuing around, bending the wire, holding it in the same place above the tape as we did before until we have all four sides of the square. And on the last band we want to bend the long end of the wire underneath that short end. After tightening up the shape of the square, we will place it back in the players again to create a fifth bend in the wire that will wrap underneath that short end of the wire. Now that we have the square, we can go ahead and make what will become the band of the ring. Using the very tip of our pliers, we're going to hold the bottom wire. And in the very corner we're going to take the long end of the wire and bend it into a right angle, drawing it straight down as this will be the band of the ring with the long end of the wire straight down out from the square. We're going to wrap that short end of the wire around the band of the ring. We're going to use the nylon jaw pliers to hold the square so that it keeps its shape while we are bending that short end of the wire around the long end. Just using my fingers, I'm going to begin wrapping this short end of the wire around the long end of the wire. Once the wire becomes too short to bend with my fingers, we will take the flat nose pliers and use it to finish securing that wrap onto the wire. This 18 gauge brass wire is a bit stiffer to work with. So take your time as you create that wrap, making sure that you hold the wire firmly in your pliers so that your pliers do not slip as you twist the wire around. You could also use the pliers in the opposite way of which I am and hold the square with the flat nose pliers and use the nylon job players to wrap the wire. Having secured the main part of the wrap onto the wire, we want to finish it off by tightening the spiral together so that there are no gaps. And also to make sure that that end of the wire is pressed flat against the wire on which we were wrapping. Now that we have secured the square shape, we can create the band using the ring mandrel. We will place the wire on it and pressing it firmly, wrap the wire around to create this circular shape. We want to leave a little space between the end of the wire and the square shape so that we can wear this as an adjustable ring. So choosing the point in which I want to bend the wire, I'm going to take the flat nose pliers and hold that point tightly in the wire, and then take the long end of the wire and bend it down to create a tight bend in the wire. Then using the wire cutters, we're going to leave a short tail and cut off the extra wire. Then taking the flat nose pliers again, we will use them to secure and tighten that end of the wire. Next, we want to take a sandpaper or file to smooth down both ends of the wire. You can see that this side of the ring is a little bit more straight than we want it to be. So we will take the flat nose pliers and use them to curve that wire a little bit more to give it a more circular shape. Then turning the ring round, we will do the same thing on the other end of the wire so that both sides are matching. To wear this as an adjustable ring, we simply push the ends apart before squeezing this circle to be a smaller size. And we can wear it on a smaller finger. And of course, all we have to do to make the ring larger again is to pull the ends apart. I hope you enjoyed learning how to use your flat nose pliers to create this statement ring. Thanks so much for watching. I hope I'll see you in another class.