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Double Strand Pearl & Crystal Wire Wrap Bracelet

 by Tammy Powley
Tammy Powley's Website

 

If you like delicate jewelry but still want a little “pop” in your design, consider doubling up. This bracelet project combines sterling wire, pearls, crystals, and a little ribbon to create a bracelet that is delicate but will still get noticed. The added piece of ribbon is an easy mixed-media method that adds color to the bracelet whose finished length is approximately 7 inches long. Add or remove wire and bead segments as necessary to adjust the length.

 

Materials and Equipment:

2 1/2 feet of 24-gauge dead-soft sterling round wire

2 – 6mm sterling jump rings

5 – 4mm purple pearl beads

5 – 4mm bicone Swarovski *AB clear crystals

6 -4mm Czech dark purple AB crystals

3 – 4mm square Swarovski AB clear crystals

2 – pieces of 2 inch lengths of sterling chain

10 inches of 1/4 inch wide light purple organza ribbon

 

Round-nosed pliers

2 - Flat-nosed pliers

Wire cutters

*AB refers to aurora borealis.

 

Note: I like to work with pieces of wire that are 6 to 8 inches in length rather than cut a lot of small pieces of wire for my bead and wire sections. I find that the longer pieces of wire become easier to work with and create less wire waste.

 

Start by using flat-nosed pliers to bend a piece of wire 90 degrees, so that it is “L” shaped.

Now hold the bent area of the wire with round-nosed pliers, and use your fingers to wrap the wire around the nose of the pliers to make a large loop. (If you do this same technique with harder wire, you may need to grasp the wire with pliers rather than your fingers, depending on your finger strength.)

Continue to keep the nose of the round-nosed pliers inside the loop you just made, making sure to use your index finger to keep the loop in place, and with a pair of pliers in your other hand, wrap the wire from the “L” around the straight piece of wire. Slip on one pearl bead.

Repeat steps 2 and 3 to finish the wrapped loop on the other end of the pearl bead and trim off excess wire. Use flat-nosed pliers to make sure none of the wire is sticking out. (24-guage wire is pretty soft, so I rarely have to use a file on it as long as I flatten the cut off areas of wire with flat-nosed pliers. If you were to use thicker wire, you may want to file areas smooth with a jeweler’s file.)

Start another wrapped loop, but this time, before wrapping it close, slip one end of the pearl segment you just made into the loop.

Continue making wrap loops and connecting bead segments together, but alternate with pearl segments and bicone crystal segments.

End when you have made a connected a total of 10 wire and bead wrapped segments, alternating with pearl, crystal, pearl, etc. The finished pieces should be approximately 6 3/4 inches in length. Set this aside for later use.

Now start working on the second strand of your bracelet by use the same wire wrapped loop technique to connect a dark purple crystal, a square crystal, and another dark purple crystal in between the two sections of sterling chain.

Using this same bead pattern (dark purple crystal; square crystal; dark purple crystal) make one wire wrapped bead segment on each end of the wire.

Now you are ready to assemble your bracelet. With a pair of flat-nosed pliers in each hand, open one jump ring by grasping the ring with both pliers, and then move one pair away from you and the other pair towards you to open the jump ring. Slip on one end of each of the two bracelet pieces you just made onto the jump ring, and then use the same technique to close the jump ring around the wire loop on both bracelets.

Add another jump ring to the other ends of the bracelet, and then insert the ribbon through the jump rings.

Finally, just tie the ribbon into a bow to create a feminine, mixed-media style clasp.

 

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