Wire & crystal pendant tutorial 'Cear'

Hi guys, this is Nadia from Embroidery Crafts and in this video I want to show you how to wrap a crystal and add some facet cut gemstones. If you haven't already, hit the subscribe button because I put new stuff on a regular basis. I quite often make kits and PDF tutorials for the videos I put up on here and I'll pop a link in the description below and I also have all sorts of gemstones, square and half wound wire, some beads and all sorts of other goodies on my website. So take a gander over and see if there's anything you fancy. Last but not least, come and join us in our Wire Wrappers and Metalsmiths group on Facebook. I'll also pop a link below. Right, let's get started. Alright, so we've got a square wire and we are going to find the midpoint of that and then just create a small little loop at the bottom. This is just so that we can attach a little trinket or bead or whatever to the bottom. So let's create a loop that we need to bring the wire back out, kind of bend it because we're going to be adding that wire in to some more base wire. So we've got a little loop here. We want to flatten that out to start with like that. Do the same on the other side. So we've got a tiny little loop just big enough so that we can add a little jump ring to there to add like a dangle. So then we've got our other square wire and we're just going to line that up on the side like that and we're going to be tying this together with some half round wire. You just need a small piece. Ten centimeters, I think that's about four inches or something like that. We're just going to tie this together like that. A couple of wraps. I'm going to push this against. You can see that like that and to help it flatten out a little bit more. And I like to use square wire for this because it really allows the half round wire to kind of sit. We're going to cross over where the loop is and and continue with that wrap on the other side. Do roughly about the same amount of wraps as you've done on the one side like that and then push it all together. I think I need to do one more wrap or undo one. I think might be too much. So like that. So that's what it looks like. So we've got the little loop at the bottom. This is going to be underneath like so and when we're going to cut off the half round, just make sure that you're cutting it off when you are on top on the inside because that is going to sit against the stone. So there's nothing that can hook from the outside. So that's that. Okay, so next we're going to create an angle like that and then another angle comes straight up. So now this obviously depends on the size of your crystal. So you get thicker ones and you get thinner ones and just want to make sure that it actually fits. For some of them, sometimes they have like a little sort of step at the bottom. So you kind of just need to make sure that this fits. Like this one here has got a point at the bottom. You will find there's quite a lot of crystals that are obviously differently shaped. So you need to accommodate that. You can kind of place it in like that for instance. So just make sure that you accommodate any sort of unevenness in the crystal. So once you're happy with that, just kind of decide on where it's going to sit roughly like that and then we're going to close off at the top at the moment. This is what it's looking like. Okay, so now you need to determine where you want to bend over the top. So you can either make it long like this. Maybe I'll do that. I haven't actually done this like that before. So we're going to do obviously these wires, three wires. One on the bottom, one on the top. They're going to hold the crystal in place and then the rest of the wire is going to stay in the middle. So I'm just thinking I want to have a little bit of space to put some detail at the top. So I'm going to do here roughly about a centimeter above the stone like here. To put a little kink in the wire and do the same on the other side. You can obviously measure this to make sure that it sits the right place. So that should be fine and then we're going to bend these wires up so it squeezes in to have the midpoint and crossing over like that's difficult. So we're going to undo. And then we want to make sure that they run parallel again, so I'm going to bend it up like that and do the same on the other side. So just try and make sure that it lines up. Like that. Then check that the crystal still fits. Yeah, so it should be okay. So I just want this little gap at the top to add some detail like that. All right, so I've shaped it. It's much easier if you actually mark it with a bit of a marker pen. So next we're going to tie off the sides. You can do this before actually you bend these, but yeah, so I'm going to bring this in here. It's not a piece of half round wire and we're just going to do three or four wraps around the side and that just binds the square wire together like that. And you only need a very short piece for that, so any scrap will do. If you've got any leftover half round wire, I mean if you don't have half round you can also use just normal round wire for that as well. It's literally just to bind these together. So I've done about four wraps on one side, so I'm going to do four wraps on the other and I always like to squeeze so that holds it, that flattens it against the wire and holds it down. And remember when you're cutting this off is to actually come and cut it on the inside, so lift this up and then rough in the middle because that will prevent any wires, any loose wires from hooking onto clothing or anything like that. So that's that and then line them up to be on the same, in the same position. Obviously they're still not quite straight, but that's basically what it looks like. So obviously make sure that they're nice and straight. Okay, so it's all lined up. So next we're going to tie these together. So that's some half round wire. Straighten this out a little bit, it likes to twist. So going to first attach this around all of them and that will bind the whole lot together to start with. Close it off like that. A couple of wraps, going to push it down. I just want to make sure that it's nice and tight as possible. Push, looks like. So next going to take the top two wires and these two wires on each side, going to bend these out of the way and then we're going to continue to wrap the half round wire around the two at the front. This is going to be our bail, like that. Just going to wrap this all the way. So obviously the length of the bail just depends on how you want it to look. So you can make this either longer or shorter. Right, so I'm going to finish this up and then we're going to do the next step. Okay, so now we've got a good length here. As I said, it depends how big you want to make yours. I think this one is about 13 roughly centimeters, which is about an inch and 1.2 inches or something like that. I'm not very good with conversions. So next is we're just going to bend this over. You can probably cut this off, but I'm just going to leave it for now. I'm going to bring the legs through the front and then we're just going to fold this over like so and then we're going to use the legs, one on each side. We're going to just do one wrap. That will tie off. That will tie off the bail to the frame. Do the same on the other side and that will keep everything secure. So this is what it looks like at the moment. We've got these two square wires on each side to create some detail with. So at the moment, this is what we've got. Okay, so now we've attached everything. So now we need to create a little seat for the gem to sit on. I'm going to place the stone inside the setting like that and put it in the direction that you want it to sit and then you're going to have to decide where strategically is best to bend the wires in for your stone to sit on. So I'm going to start from the back. So obviously I need, if I flip this over, I need some support underneath and then from the sides. So I'm going to bend the bottom in. So sometimes it's hard to split. So I'm just going to bring in a needle to try and split. Then I stub it. Split this. Do the same on the other side. So now once you have the room, support the rest of the frame. I'm going to bring this. Do the same on the other side. You'll need to bring it up and out a bit because the stone is obviously I mean quite thick. So it's got some support from the base now. Like that. You're going to be doing the same at the back. So I'd say roughly about here. So be careful when you're doing the bending not to bend all of the other ones. Do the same on the other side. Just want to bend to give it some support. Like that. Now the stone should have some support from the back. Like that. Apply this to bring this up. Same on the other side and this will kind of cage it. Like that. And then the same at the bottom. Stone in. Then you've got cage from the side holding the stone in place. You can pull it over the stone. Gently. Don't want to hide too much of it. Do the same on the bottom. Like so. Okay, so now time to create the details. I'm going to start with one of the wires from the bail. Straighten this out a little bit. So I'm going to bring this through the center. Careful not to twist it too much. Create a bit of detail with that. I'm going to be using this. Come round and leave that bottom here. So this will serve to start creating detail. But also help to keep the stone in place. Obviously it needs more attachment point. These are not secure enough. So we need to to add some more. So we're going to bring this through and then we'll leave it like that. That's it from the back. So next take the other wire from the left and we're going to, again, we're also going to bring this through the middle here. So gently, gently pull it through and then once it's through you can kind of shape it. It's a little bit work hardened here. You can see at the back. That's why it's not it's a bit straight. It doesn't want to bend. So you have to gently coax it into the shape you want it to be. Bring it down a little bit like that and then that way kind of sits over the stone and creates a little detail. I don't like how flat it is here. So I'm just going to squeeze it gently, gently until I'm actually happy with the shape of it like that. All right. So now I'm going to use this to go through the frame here. So gently same with the other wire here. Just drop down. See this is why you need these to keep them in place still. Tie this down. If you jiggle it like that it pulls the noose tighter around the frame without you having to use too much force like that and that will tighten everything up. So once you're happy with that it looks like so just adjust it until you're satisfied with the way this looks. All right. So next going to shape this one. So I just want to lay it follow the path of these first ones kind of bring it over the top like so and then kind of run it down and then bring it through the bottom. Careful not to pop the stone out. There we go. It does pop out. That's okay. I'm going to be using this wire to attach the stone in from the bottom so right now it's pushing it out. So we want to make sure that it comes in from the bottom. So here's the back I'm going to bring it in like that and then we're going to use it to lay over the edge of the stone. That's at the moment. Bring it through bend this at the back and then we're going to attach it. At the moment this is what we have. Okay, so now attach this wire down below. So it's running from the back on the side here and then attached here at the bottom. So the stone's still quite loose so we need to use the other wires to keep holding it down. So I'm going to use one of the top. So again, I'm going to first bring the wire through the middle. It's not as easy to shape the wires when they're running through the center, but still obviously doable. So bring it through. I always try and manipulate as little as possible so I don't work hard on it too much while I'm still trying to shape it. So you can't really shape it properly. I'm just using a pair of pliers to round the top a little bit like that. That enables me to pull this through. I'm going to do the same with the other and this will serve to press the stone in the corner here. So I'm going to go in the corner here and I'm trying to bring this in like that. So you're going to kind of adjust it until you like the shape of it. Bring it in a bit more like that. So once we have that, we're just going to attach around there. So I'm just going to adjust it until I'm happy with the look. Then we're going to be attaching it to the frame and continuing with the design. All right, so I've kind of fixed these. So what I'm going to do now is we need to bring these two I've just attached down so that we can run them over the stone. So I'm thinking I'm going to take this one maybe a bit further up like that and then kind of run it in a bit more. Don't want to hide too much of the stone and then maybe kind of bring it in from under there. I think that's what I'll do. So now bring it through the bottom. So I put my finger over the wire here. So I don't actually move the position too much when I'm attaching it like that and kind of use that wire to wedge the base of the stone. So it gives it some extra attachment points and then wrap it one more time. Let's try and keep the square wire as straight as possible. There we go. So that's obviously covering the stone a bit more than I like so you can adjust that. But that's essentially the gist of the design. Okay, so run it along the stone and attached it at the base here. So now I'm going to take this other wire here, which is the second one we've attached earlier. And we're going to do the same thing again. We're just going to follow the shape of the first wire. We're just going to bring it around the base as well. Just kind of jiggle it, bring it in and just kind of place it where you think it looks nice and then kind of arrange it so that it has some flowing lines. You'll notice now the stone is nice and tight and we're going to use this wire again to create some more area for the stone to sit on. Bring it through. There you go. And then obviously you can just arrange these little swirls the way you want so that they have a nice flow to them. Bring them out a little bit like that. Obviously arrange them until you have them. Okay, so I've got all these wires here. So I'm going to reuse these as well to create some more detail. I want to reinforce this a little bit because obviously 0.8 20 gauge wire is quite fine. So I want to create some more strength so it can't get bent. So I'm going to take one of the wires at the back and I'm going to create additional shape and I think I might just create a little swirl here. In fact, I think I might just set a stone here. So I'm going to create like a little circle nice and round. Obviously you don't have to do this. You can just you know, set a bead if you're not comfortable with that sort of setting. So just a small one. Make sure to make it as round as possible like that. Just make sure you like the shape because you can't change it later. Okay, so now putting the stone in so the loop should be just big enough so that the stone can sit on it without falling through. If you make it too small the stone will sit stuck up and I don't know how to explain it. It will be too bulky basically. You want it to be as flat as possible. So make the loop just big enough for the stone not to fall through. Now we're going to do is the wire needs to coil around the stone and then over and above the sides to wedge it in place. So my wires work hard and just now because I had to open the setting because I messed it up. So it makes it difficult if you work harden the wire to try if you can avoid it to open and close the setting too many times. The stone will fall out a couple of times. But just take your time with that. As I said if you're not comfortable with this kind of setting yet you can use a bead. What I'm doing see very gently now really take my time with that is a loop the wire around the stone. If I'm not happy with the shape I'm just going to come in and shape it. As I said this wire is work hardened. So it's much more difficult to manipulate as if it wasn't so I need to resort to tool use and you also want as you're coiling the wire you want to make sure that it kind of lifts up as you're coiling so that as we're twisting it twists over the stone like that. I'm going to try and make it obviously as round as possible and just make sure it covers the edges. There we go. It's a fiddly one today. Then kind of press it so that's coiled and kind of fits. And the good thing is with this is it also rests against the frame. So it gives the stone some extra support. If you're not happy with the shape you can see it's popping out on the side here. So I'm going to push it back in and then I make sure that the wires are over the edge. Just kind of bring it over and then I push very ever so gently. You don't want if you press too hard this whole thing is going to go and then the setting is ruined. So I'm just going to bring this up a bit more. Same on the other side. This one's fiddly today. So now I think it'll work. So and ever so gently like fraction of a millimeter I'm pressing. So don't cover the stone too much and I think this is okay now. So the stone you see that was a procedure today. But yeah, so just if you take your time with that the coil you can see is covering the stone and wedging it in place and then we're going to bring this in here. We're going to attach. We use this wire to attach to the frame. That's what it looks like at the moment. All right, so I made sure the stone's tight. So now we need to tie this off and I'll put my finger over where the stone's sitting and so that when I'm attaching it, it doesn't move. So I'm going to come around like here. I'm going to find a nice spot to attach. I think I might just you don't want to move the frame too much. So just find an area. I think I'm going to go through this section here. Um, where's my pair of pliers because you don't want an actual effect. I'm wondering if I should just attach it to the frame here. So this will be different from I don't want to attach it here because I don't want I don't want the wire to be visible here. So I'm going to go around the back. This is going to depend on your design as well because it's going to be different from mine. Um, obviously because it's an organic design. So I'm going to bring it through the front here like that and very gently when I'm when I'm pulling it to make sure I don't displace anything. And this will bring the wire through and then you can attach it somewhere here and that way I don't have a big bulky thing sitting. Obviously, I'm going to tighten that up um, and then you know fold it over but this means that there isn't any anything bulky sitting here. Um, so that's that. All right. So I've got some more square wire here. So I'm going to take I think this top one and I'm going to create some more flow with this. I think I may just have to decide where you want it. I think I may just come in from behind like that. Not sure if I like it like that better. Like that. Sorry doorbell was ringing. So I brought this round and now we kind of shape it and I think I'm going to attach it here. Let's try and bring this up. You don't want to cross over too many wires and make it bulky. So bring it around. Keep your finger over it as you're pulling it through so that nothing gets pulled out of shape as you're doing it and if you wiggle it like that it'll tighten it up. There you go. And that's the shape there. So obviously arrange it now that it's in place you can take your pair of pliers and you can adjust it as you want. Okay, so that's attached and you can make sure that the lines are straight. Adjust it a little bit like that and then I'm going to take one of these wires here and I want to reinforce it like I've done on the other side just to make it a bit stronger because it is 0.8 20 gauge wire after all. So we're going to just follow and I want to try and keep the shiny flat surface up so that there's no edge and it kind of makes it look a little bit cleaner. That makes sense. Kind of bring it in make sure the wire is nice and flat and then we can follow the shape like that and kind of find a spot to attach it. That reinforces the section here a little bit and then obviously find a spot to attach it. It's getting a bit crowded here. So find a place where you can feed it through and attach it safely. All right, so I decided to create a little swirl rather than just pull it through and the wire comes back. So from behind comes back and now I'm going to use this wire again to create another detail. So what we need to do is bring this wire so nice and flat. You don't want you want the flat side to set up. So you're going to do before we're able to swirl it we need to bring it through the gap again. Put my finger over it and then bring it through like that and just push gently. So this is quite a sort of fiddle. You need to do this slowly sort of really millimeter by millimeter because you don't want to pull too much and then when you get to a certain stage you need to start twisting this. So I'm going to switch over to some round nose pliers and you kind of have to gauge where the swirl starts like this. You want to make sure that it stays, the wire stays flat. So it actually needs to come through a bit more. So and if you ever so gently pull it like that it'll inch through rather than go through with the rush and I've created a little the swirl I've just made so it's an ideal. I think now this will work now you want to create a little loop. Use your round nose pliers to kind of do the twist like that and you want this swirl to fit into the space of the other swirl. So you can adjust it until it does fit through and you'll kind of see and try not to squeeze the wire too hard like that a bit more and you kind of millimeter by millimeter adjust it until it fits and your fine tipped round nose pliers for this are actually much better than um your your sort of thicker round nose pliers. So that's that. So this swirl fits nicely into the other swirl and now obviously you can touch it up you can tie it off. I mean, I always tend to you know, use leftover wires and run it over another length here but I mean you can also go over the top with that and just overload the design and sometimes I tend to do that just because I I like to go high in detail and well, that's that. So now I'm going to find a spot where we can actually tie it off and cut it off. All right. So now I need to balance it out a little bit. I want to add a stone to the bottom so I've got some more wires here, at least this long one and so I've tied off the little loop and I've got this little bit here which we're going to cut off but first I'm going to use it to be able to bring this square wire through. I want to bring it through so it comes out in the middle through to find a spot. So that's getting a little bit tight here so we need to kind of find there we go. All right, so I'm going to bring that through and I use this to hook the wire in because otherwise it's just going to slip through because it was previously looped in that direction, if that makes sense. Right, so bring that through. So now I've got this wire at the front but now make sure that it's straight. You obviously don't want you don't want this to be twisted. So I'm going to straighten this up and all we're going to do is follow this line here come back up make sure it's not twisted because it's running like that and then we're going to create another stone setting at the bottom like that. This is just to balance out the stone here. I want to have something at the bottom. So obviously make sure that it follows the lines nicely, so that is what we're going to do. Okay, so once you're happy with where this wire is sitting, so shaping all of that, we're going to put in the stone and this is a five mil stone. You can obviously put a smaller one. I wouldn't necessarily go bigger because there's not enough space there but I think a five mil is just about right. Maybe even a four mil would be better but I want to balance out I want to balance out the smaller stone from the top with something a bit bigger at the bottom so I want to make sure this wire stays flat so I'm twisting it before I coil it and if the stone comes out temporarily, that's fine put it back in and again like we did with the one on the top you can see the square wires wanting to twist. I want it to stay flat so then just need to make sure that this is nice and tightly set because obviously it's quite an exposed sort of spot at the bottom here so this is where it's going to sit like that so you can then arrange it. See it's a bit prone here so we want to make sure that it sits nicely as flat as possible All right, so I've put the stone in and now I want to attach it but I don't want any wires running on this side just yet. So I'm going to put this wire through the bottom here and put a little bend here and that will allow me to place the stone at the base and then also bring the wire through quite inconspicuously at the bottom there and then we can use it to attach somewhere here around the frame. So just kind of position it where you want and then kind of wrap the wire bring it through here and just give it a good tie it down nicely. So do this first and kind of shape it like that. So this is what it looks like. I'm going to bring it through here All right, so if you're happy with the way the stone sits I've tied it off. Find a spot in the frame to tie this off and make sure it sits nice and flat. So the last step you can reuse those. I mean as I said you can you know go to town with all the leftover wire, but I think there's enough stuff on here So we're going to cut off all of the square wires, but we'll use the half round wire to add some beads So we're going to leave those So just to come in here and I will just trim them off as neatly as I can and tuck them away because you obviously don't want anything to stick out so trim off the wires as tucked away as possible. So the last step is just to add some beads. You can reuse the 0.6 half round wire that we've got left over and just kind of choose a spot where you want to add. I kind of want to put it here as a bit of a decor, but as I said, you can you know dot some beads around wherever and as I said, I normally polish and oxidize my piece before I put the beads on because these are actually quite hard to clean up after so polish your piece first and oxidize it first if you intend to oxidize it basically and then add your beads And that's that so once you're done with that trim off all the wires and give it a good polish and that's right so we've got some scrap leftover 0.8. We're going to need to make a tiny jump ring because it needs to be a tiny attachment so that it's not so visible. So I'm just going to make a couple of wraps I mean you can use made jump rings already, but it's just easier to use up some of the scrap and that's that they're tiny they're just small enough to fit on the end like that So open it up And this is just a tiny jump ring because you really don't want it to show It's easier to attach it with Some chain nose pliers because I had these round nose pliers handy just now. They've got to find enough tip To make sure they close properly so it doesn't fall off and that's the pendant done. Thank you so much for watching I really hope you enjoyed this If you haven't already hit the subscribe button to get updates when I upload new videos And if you fancy why not come and join our artist group On facebook, it's called wire wrappers and metalsmiths worldwide We have a fun bunch and there are monthly challenges if you want to participate Now as I said earlier, I quite often make kits for these I've also got gemstones wire beads all sorts of other stuff And as I said, there's a link in the description below I've got facebook instagram and tiktok if you're interested to follow my journey in bite-sized videos I put little Clips up there of tutorials I put up on here. So I would love it if you give me a follow And that's it from me. Thank you so much for watching. See you next time