Today I'm going to share one of my favorite projects to make for gift-giving...the wire cluster ring! These are super easy to make and can be made in about 10-15 minutes each -and- they'll garner you LOTS of compliments and oohs and ahhs. Now you know why I make them as gifts, cause everyone gets super excited over them! Here's what you need to make one, or a dozen, if you so do fancy!
For this project you'll need the following...
– 24 Gauge Wire (silver or sterling silver plated)
– Crystals/pearls/beads of your choice (I picked these up when they were 50% off at Michaels)
– A finger-sized cylinder like a mascara tube
– Flat-nose or round-nose pliers
– Wire cutters
Cut off about a foot of the wire to start with using your wire cutters.
Wrap the wire around the tube about 3 times. A mascara tube is the size that will fit most fingers (even a pinky for people with bigger fingers).
Carefully remove the wrapped wire in a ring-like shape from the tube. Securely hold it together and take one end of the wire and loop it around the gathered ring wire 3 times.
Now take the other end of the wire and pull it through and loop it several times around This will be about 3/4 of an inch from the first loop. Clip off the shorter piece of wire, but keep the longer piece.
Feed your first bead onto the wire, then wrap around it a couple times.
Feed your second bead and wrap the wire around a couple of times. Depending on the size of your beads, you will want to alternate sizes, to create evenly spaced beads across your ring.
Here's the progression with six beads on the ring.
Continue adding beads until you reach the other loop or until you run out of wire. For me, I wanted to balance the beads out with a couple more beads so...
I cut another small piece of wire and added a few more beads to my design.
The final step is to use your pliers and fingers to hide any sharp wire-cut points inside your design! You don't want your gift recipient (or yourself) to get poked by your new ring!
Extra Tip: Less is more. I find that sometimes I get a little too enthusiastic with the beads and my ring turns into a beaded monstrosity! It may take a few tries to get the hang of what's the right amount of beads to work with for this design. The great thing is that you can always cut off your beads if the design isn't working out!
And here's me wearing my new ring! I like the mixture of the pearls and swarovski crystals. Especially with my bling-tastic wedding ring. :)
And here's a version I did just with one stone. I picked these beads up at JoAnn. They reminded me of Chiclets!
This one I call my fruity pebble rings! Mix around with bead shapes! I've created some with large colorful seed beads too.
Hope you liked this fun ring project!
Until next time Swellions!
Alexa
