A friend asked me to make some wire charms for an upcoming party — usually I make them for friends as a favor, my little contribution to gatherings, parties. They last longer than flowers and have less calories than chocolate. ;-)

Normally, I use some of my stash of oversize earring hoops, but this time, I was all out. I sat, staring at my work space — it was even messier than usual — what to use, what to use? Giant jump rings? — too fat for most beads. Ring sized memory wire — a possibility, but I didn't have any of that either. As I pondered, my eye fell on a spool of decorative wire, left over from assembling a lampwork bracelet. The light bulb came on — decorative wine charms using coloured wire and the same spiral wiring techniques that I use in bracelets!

Some experimenting later, and I had a whole slew of wine charms that I think are my prettiest ever, and all made with beads and wire that I had at hand.

You will need:

Supplies

• a selection of smallish beads, size 6/0, 4 mm, etc.
• a few medium size beads, around a 6 mm size
• and few focal beads or metal charms, 8 mm beads, tube beads, small lampwork beads, etc.
• Soft, easy-to-bend, coloured wire, such as Colorcraft, Artistic Wire, or similar, in 20 gauge.

Tools:

• chain nose pliers
• round nose pliers
• wire cutters.

• Glass of wine (wine is optional, but having a wine glass for sizing and shaping the wire is very useful.)

The longer piece of wire is for the main loop around the glass stem. The shorter piece is for the "dangle."

Start by making the dangle. Make a spiral at one end of the wire.

To make a spiral:

• Make a round loop, by using your round nose pliers, start with the very tip of the wire buried in the jaws of pliers, at the very tip of the jaw

• Roll the pliers by rolling your wrist away from you, as far as comfortable. Notice how the position of the thumb changes as the pliers roll the wire into a half a loop

• Reposition the pliers back at your starting position, and roll again until you have a round loop

• Stop to straighten out the loop if it is crooked or bends off the center line of the wire

Switch to the chain nose pliers

• Hold the loop in the pliers, with the tail of wire projecting out
• Using a finger or thumb and light pressure, bend the wire tail down around the loop, about a 1/4 of a loop

• Reposition the wire loop in the pliers, and continue to bend the wire down and around

• The pliers help keep the spiral neat and flat

• Continue until you have at least 2 full circuits in the spiral
• When your spiral is big enough, bend the tail at an 90 degree angle to the spiral

• String on a few beads, 1 small, 1 focal bead, 1 or 2 small beads, looks nice.
• Make a loop at the top to hang the dangle from
• To make the loop, repeat the loop bending procedure, without continuing into a spiral

• Roughly shape the second piece of wire into an "U" shape. Use the stem of the wine glass to get a nice smooth bend.

• Make a spiral on one end of the U shape (if you don't make a spiral at one end, the beads will be happily sliding off the end while you try to try to put a spiral on the other)
• String on some beads to take you to approximately the middle of the wire, use the pictures for inspiration for colours, sizes, etc. Put your dangle in the middle, and reverse the pattern to back out to the end. You don't need to be exact in the length.

• Check that it is long enough by fitting it around the wine glass stem, and take the opportunity to smooth and perfect the curve

• Wrap a spiral at the end, and tighten up to take up all the empty space on the wire. Adjust as necessary to lay flat.
• That's it! Have fun and experiment!

Variations:

Instead of a bead dangle, form the wire into letters or shapes. Practice drawing the letters first by thinking of how you would write it without lifting the pen.

Hosting a wine tasting? Cover the wine labels and put a decorative charm on each one to identify it. Don't forget, they will need to be larger for wine bottle necks than for glass stems.

Don't drink wine? How about beer bottle charms? Or charms to identify water bottles? Or even hang them off the handles of your coffee mug at the office. After all, anyone should be able to have jewelry for their beverage containers! (They look nice on lamps and candlesticks too!)