DIY Sun Ring_ Day 5 of the 10-Day Wire Ring Making Challenge

Hey there, Heather Boyd Wire here and welcome to my 10-day wire ring making challenge. Now be sure to join the Facebook event page where you can share pictures of your wire rings as you make them. And at the end of the 10-day challenge I'm going to be drawing one winner to win my wire art course and also a custom-made item from our Etsy shop. And if the contest is over, no fears, you can still share pictures of your work in the event page on Facebook or join the Wire Art and Jewelry Makers Club. Today we're making a gorgeous sunshine ring. So for the sunshine ring we're going to need 20 gauge wire, a 6 millimeter bead, our tools, and a ring cone. We'll start by putting our 6 millimeter bead on the wire. We're just going to put it down there and what you want to do is take the wire and put it around the bead. So we're going to go around on top, okay, to do a full circle on top and then we're going to bring it to the back. So we're going to bring it around here to the back and then what you want to do is actually twist it around this wire. So we'll take that, twist it around. Now the sample I made was actually with aluminum wire and I find aluminum wire a little easier to work with for this type of design because it makes nice crisp bends but the trouble is with the ring I don't super recommend wearing aluminum wire on your finger and so the non-tarnish copper wire I find is better or you could use sterling silver. And so now what we want to do is form the sun rays. So basically what I do is just bend that here and then you're just going to have to eyeball. This does definitely take practice because what I usually do for this, I've made earrings like this before and it definitely takes practice because you want to imagine you're going to have like four larger rays and then a little ray in between each one. So just kind of space them apart. You can wiggle around it after just to make sure it looks somewhat symmetrical but you might need a few practices to get it to get it quite right. So we're just going to keep going around the bead like around the circle and bending and then you bend one way and then the next ray you bend the other way and then that way they all stay somewhat on the same level. So we're just going to keep going around. So now see I'm halfway so this one's going to be a long ray, that one at the bottom will also be a long ray. So we're going to take that and just do it a little bit longer. Now this is the one that's going to form the at the side of the rings. So we're just going to bend this here, bend it back and we're going to keep going around until we get to the top and always alternating the direction of the bend just so it looks a little more even. And now we're at a small ones we're going to bend it a little bit smaller and then this one here is going to be a little larger to match that one. And I probably as always kept my wire a little longer but I always say better to cut too long than too short and you can always use your bits for little dangly earrings or little dangly pieces and there's always a use for little bits of wire. And we're just going to take that one. So now we've pretty well finished this part of the ring and then what I do now is I'm actually going to take, bend this one the same length as that one so just eyeball it, take this one and bend it. Looks like it has to be a little bit more. Yes, we're going to bend that back and this end we're actually going to clip. So bend it right back, right back there. Forget about that piece for a minute. And then we want to clip it so it just is going to sit right inside there. So just give it a little bit of a clip, okay, just clip it a little bit here and then with your flat pliers you're going to bend it down so it sits right in there, like really discreetly sits right in there and then what we're going to do now is wrap it with this one so that'll hide that little, that little end and just hold it here so this stays spaced out and wrap it around a couple of times. So make sure this, these two don't get squeezed together too much and just take this, sometimes it helps to use your your fingernail a little bit, wrap it around twice. I think it looks nice with like a little double wrap there. So now we're going to bring it right underneath, okay, flip it over and this is going to form your ring. So you can give it a little bit of a jog here if you want it like centered under there and now take your ring cone and figure out what size you want. So bring this around, all the way around. I guess in theory you could wrap it around twice and then wrap it here but just for the sake of simplicity I'm just going to do it the once. So we're going to bring it around here and same thing, you could bend this wire up a little bit once you know your size so bend it up a little bit here and then this is going to be wrapped around here. So this one came from the top, maybe I'll do this one up from the bottom and sometimes I find it easier because it can get really distorted sometimes so sometimes it's easier to help it out first. So if I bend it and then just create a little bend first and that just helps it out so it won't get distorted when you wrap it around. Now these edge, these ends too should probably be pinched closer together like they were on the other side and then it's going to be easier to wrap. We'll just close that up here and we're going to bring this around here and wrap it around twice. So we're going to, just so it looks the same as the other end, if you're worried about it getting distorted just put it back on the ring cone. So bring it in here and really pull it tightly. Okay we're going to pull it around tightly so now we have a double, double twist there. Take your flat, your cutters, take your cutters there and cut it nice and flush in there to get, make sure that end isn't sticking out anywhere. It's good to have little pointy cutters and from there because you don't want it to slip off we're going to take our flat pliers and just pull that a bit, push it in place, give it a nice pinch in place. It's a little tricky to get in there but you'll get the hang of it and always when you make a ring put it back on the ring cone. If you have to straighten up these edges a bit you can just take your pliers, straighten them up and there you have your very beautiful sunshine ring. So thanks so much for watching the video. Give it a big thumbs up if you liked it. Be sure to subscribe to my channel for lots more DIY wire art and jewelry making videos. Hit the notification bell to be notified when I go live and when I post new videos and be sure to join the Facebook event page for the 10-day wire ring making challenge and if the contest is already over no worries you could still share photos of your work in the Wire Art and Jewelry Makers Club on Facebook. I'll link it up below and if you'd like to check out our wire art jewelry on Etsy my husband and I specialize in custom wedding cake toppers and funky jewelry and if you'd like to join my mailing list be sure to sign up below and I'll send you a free copy of my wire art essentials ebook. So thanks again for watching and we'll see you the next time.