Wire Post Earrings: Spiral Studs

1. Intro for Studs: Hello, folks, Katrina here, and welcome to this class on how to create stud earrings. In each video, I'll cover the tools and materials you need for each design. We will be making a set of fun spirals, a pair of knot studs, as well as a set of dainty flower earrings. If you haven't already, be sure to check out my other classes where you can learn to create even more wire designs. Now let's head over to the class and learn how to create designs that are like a wallflower. Beautiful, unique, and timeless. 2. Spiral Studs: We're going to start off this course with these fun spirals. The wire we are using is this silver plated copper in 20 gauge. We are going to be using a ruler, a file, and the pliers that we're going to be using are the wire cutters, the plastic coated or straightener, flat nose, and needle nose pliers. To begin, we always want to start with a clean slate, so we're going to smooth out the wire, get all kinks and bumps out of it. Then we're going to take our flat nose pliers and begin creating the earring. First, we're going to create the post of the earring, and I'm going to use the ruler and measure the wire to half inch. Holding it at that mark, I'm going to place the wire in my flat nose pliers and bend it over 90 degrees to create the post of the stud. Now that we have created our post, we'll begin making the spiral. I'm going to hold the post of the earring in my needle nose pliers and then I'm going to use my pointer finger to hold the wire in place so that it doesn't swing back and forth while I'm creating my first bend. Holding it tightly, give the wire a twist. With the first bend made, I can now readjust my hold with the pliers to begin wrapping the spiral. Then I readjust my hold and wrap the wire again. A once there are two rows of wire, I'm going to switch to the flat nose or to the plastic coated pliers. With these pliers, I'm going to hold the face of the spiral tightly and then I can bend the wire up and around readjusting my hold to continue wrapping the wire into a spiral shape. At this point, you can wrap the wire as much or as little as you want to make the spiral as big or as small as you prefer. Once the spiral is the size that we want, we will cut off the long end of the wire. Using the wire cutters, cut that tail off as close to the spiral as you can. Now that we have got it cut, we are going to file the post and the spiral with our file to smooth down all the rough edges so that nothing is sticking out or catching. With everything smoothed out, we are going to take the flattense pliers again. We're going to flatten the spiral and the post to make everything nice and straight. Here we have the finished spirals. If you want, you can wrap the wire in the opposite direction when creating the spiral so that the shapes are mirrored instead of matching as I did here. 3. Outtro: Katrina here to say thank you again for watching my video. If you would do me a favor, it would be super helpful if you left a review and comments, letting me know how this video went for you, ways that I might be able to improve these videos for you, as well as ideas on what you might like to see next. If you want to see more wire jewelry tutorials, be sure to go check out the rest of the videos on my page. That's it for now. I'll catch you next time.