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Twisted-wire coil earrings

Make short earrings for a casual look or link coils for long, eye-catching dangles.

Twisted-wire coils make charming embellishments for earrings. The single-pearl dangles even look great on hoop earrings. Or, try making your coils out of plain wire and then hammering them for texture. If you’re celebrating a birthday, replace the pearls with a crystal in the color of your birthstone.

1. To make a coil: Cut a 3–4-in. (7.6–10 cm) piece of twisted wire. Using roundnose pliers, make a loop on one end. Hold the loop with chainnose pliers, and use your fingers to coil the wire around the loop two or three times. Trim the wire, leaving a 1⁄2-in. (1.3 cm) tail. Bend the wire perpendicular to the coil, and make a plain loop.

SUPPLIES

2 6–10 mm pearls
4 3–4 mm flat spacers
6–8 in. (15–20 cm) 20- or 22-gauge twisted wire (Midwest Beads, midwestbeads.com)
4 in. (10 cm) 24-gauge half-hard wire
pair of earring wires
chainnose and roundnose pliers
diagonal wire cutters

2. Cut a 2-in. (5 cm) piece of 24-gauge wire. Make a plain loop on one end. Open the loop and attach the coil. Close the loop. On the wire, string a spacer, a pearl, and a spacer. Make a wrapped loop perpendicular to the plain loop.

3. Open the loop of an earring wire and attach the dangle. Close the loop. Make a second earring in the mirror image of the first.

A GALLERY OF OTHER DESIGN IDEAS

Try stacking three sets of pearls and flat spacers above your coil.