InspirationFX: Cherries Margarita

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InspirationFX

Get your creative juices flowing

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Cherries Margarita
by: Lee Metsalo

Summer is coming! (We hope!) Make yourself a necklace with beads that look like those cold, fruit flavoured drinks that you sip on the patio in hot weather.  That thought, along with the light, airy design, will keep you cool.

 

To assemble necklace:

Conveniently, Artistic Wire comes on a spool, meaning that your wire comes off the spool in an arc.  Be gentle working with the wire and don’t kink it!  Cut however many pieces you want links in your necklace, all equal lengths.  String one bead on each. Then, working one section at a time:

1. Center the bead
2. Fold the wire on the right, over to the left,
3. then fold the wire on the left over to the right, trapping the bead in the centre.
4. make a loop on one side
5. and on the other
   
   
   
   Make sure you form your loop along the same plane as the wire. If you turn your link sideways you should see a line of wire with a bead in the middle, as everything lines up. Place one section at a time on a steel block, and lightly hammer to work-harden. Hammering the wire lightly! will stiffen the metal and make it stronger so that it does not unbend.  Be careful not to hit your bead. You do not need to hammer hard enough to flatten the wire (although if you wanted to - you could - that would be a different look to this. Use a chasing hammer in that case, instead of a rawhide mallet.)
   
   
   Link the sections together with the jump rings.
   
   Add the lobster clasp to one side, the chain extender to the other, and done!

To assemble earrings:

1. Cut four arced sections of wire, one pair slightly longer than the other.  At the bottom of each piece, fold over a 2-3 mm section of wire with pliers, and flatten it (hammer it on a steel block) right flush to the rest of the wire to form a wide spot to stop the bead from sliding off. 
2. Slide a bead onto each wire, form a loop at the top.  As before, use the mallet and steel block to work harden the pieces - being careful not to hit your bead. Link one short section, one long section with a jump ring into a shepherd’s hook earring finding.  Matching earrings!

Tools Used:  wire cutters, roundnose pliers, flat pliers, rawhide mallet, steel block

Components

Go to our components list for this project and to buy what you need!
Need some help with some of the techniques? Check our tips page.