How To Make Wire Jewelry - Egyptian Coil Bracelet

Hi everyone, it's Samantha here again saying a big hello and hope life is treating you very well. I'm doing okay this week. Thank you to everyone who sent me some lovely messages about my son who was poorly last week. He's actually doing a whole lot better and he's back to college and that kind of thing, so thank you for that. So today I thought that we would have a look at this absolutely gorgeous, they call them Egyptian coil bracelets. I think, you know, it's based on the spiral actually essentially and obviously if you look back into time Egyptian pottery apparently had these coils on them. Absolutely beautiful on the wrist. You could probably make a really beautiful necklace with that as well. So I think we'll go through this today. It's in gold coloured wire. Aren't they beautiful? So we'll just quickly have a look at the construction of this beautiful thing. Each one of these links individually made and they hook over at the back like that. So much articulation in this beautiful piece. It's very fluid and look how I love it in raw copper actually. It's a beautiful colour. Look at that, how gorgeous is that? You can see the articulation in it. Okay, so we'll go through a list of materials that we need to make for this gorgeous piece which isn't very much at all. So that's, oh here's just some silver ones that I'm making for a silver one. So we'll just move these out of the way and for today's tutorial I'm going to be using bare copper wire. So again like with a lot of things that we make we'll use the one millimetre 18 gauge bare copper wire but you can use any type of wire with this. You're going to need some flush cutters as usual. You're going to need some chain nose pliers as always just for close-up work that kind of thing if you need to adjust anything. Six-step bail making pliers again. These are my plier of choice. I like the open spiral that they make. Some people like a more sort of closed spiral. I like the more open ones so that's entirely up to you. Once you know what you're doing you can make them as you choose or for those people who are more proficient you can use your round nose pliers. Just basically a little ruler just to measure out your lengths. I'm going to be working in centimetres today guys so obviously you can work out the equivalent inches should you want to do that. So let's clear the table away and I'll take you through how to make this beautiful bracelet. So I'll see you in a second. Right so before we get going just a very quick note about the functionality or the psychology of making pieces that have to be the same size and shape for consistency. So I've found that I make more consistent pieces or links if I have like what I call a production line. So I suggest that you guys do the same thing. So cut all your lengths at once and then do each stage with every single length so that you get the same consistency of shape, the same consistency of loop, these kind of things. It's just what I've discovered over a period of time. If you make each link individually sometimes you can be prone to having them slightly different lengths and slightly different shapes and spirals. I hope you understand what I mean but that's my advice is to do them like a production line okay. I'll show you what I mean. So I've made all of these little links individually. Okay so the first thing we need to do is to obviously measure out our one millimetre wire 18 gauge. So take our flush cutters and again like with most other things flush cut the end okay and from your spool or your coil straighten the wire out okay. Each one of my links measures approximately just under a centimetre and a half which is about a half an inch. I use 14 centimetres of wire okay. So again if you want the inch equivalents you can work that out for yourself you don't need me to tell you. Okay so cut your length. So what I'd suggest you do is if you want a bracelet of a particular length then cut out you know I think I've used 17 of these for mine. Bear with me for a second and I'll just measure this so 15, 16, 17. Yeah so I think each one of these guys 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. Yeah okay so yeah they're about a centimetre wide actually so with my measurements each one of these is about a centimetre wide okay so that fits my wrist. I'm a relatively large-ish lady and I prefer a bit of drape so as long as you go for each one of these links being a centimetre okay. So I would cut 17 lengths of wire. Right so the first thing we need to do is to make the coil on either side okay so take your wire and I use the smallest step on the plier again putting it right at the edge so you can't feel it and just gently flick the wrist round until you have the start of a coil and again on the other side you want the coil to go in the same direction not in the opposite direction so make sure that that coil start is facing away from you okay and again with the wire right at the end you start your coil so you're left with this okay so you've got a little loop starting on either side okay so bring in your flat nose or chain nose pliers and start making the coil so just use the pressure of your thumb and bend the wire round grasping the coil lightly but firmly so that you've got some purchase on it just bend it round bend it round until that piece of wire is facing downwards okay so you've got one two and then round for a third okay turn it over and do the same thing so start round and round and round until you match the other side so it's facing downwards like so okay so let's just measure this if you want to do them all individually that's fine so i've worked out that each one of these lengths here needs to be around well as close to five centimeters as you can so this is just slightly over so i just give that a little tiny tweak as you see the tiniest of tweaks okay and that's bob on five centimeters so i would go ahead and 17 of these okay and then we'll meet back in a second and i'll tell you what to do next okay right so once you've made i've said 17 but that's for my that's for my wrist okay so make as many as you as you like i'm sure there's lots of you out there who are a lot more delicate than me so you'd probably only need about 14 or 15 i'm making 17 so go ahead and make as many as you like um and you should have let's say 17 for argument's sake of this okay so the next thing that you need to do is we need to make this hoop shape okay so we come in with our pliers i'm going to be using the second step this time okay so we hold the wire thus okay so that the if you're right-handed so that the what um the spirals are facing towards the right obviously if you're left-handed you do that in the opposite way and we need to be bending these this way okay so get your pliers in the sense some people like to actually mark two and a half centimeters or the center point essentially with a sharpie um you can do that if you if you like okay so holding like so bend these guys away so that they meet in the middle okay and this is what we're left with okay if you find that one of these um spirals is offset slightly just readjust things a little bit okay but this is what we're looking for so again i would do that with all of your coil your coiled pieces so that you have consistency and i do find that it helps you know keep everything nice and consistent okay so what i like to do is to flatten this part ever so slightly um the reason being is i just think that it um looks a little looks a little neater and it gives um a nice effect okay so you just basically come in with your chain nose and very very gently holding these two pieces between the thumb and the fingers just very slightly squeeze not too much just to bring that that in you don't have to do that it's just the way that i do mine okay so go ahead and do all of those bits all of those pieces and when you've done that i'll show you the next step okay so the next step is the noisy step what i call the noisy bit what we want to do is just very very gently give the spirals just a slight tap it just gives them a little bit more stability works the wire a little makes it a little harder okay because it still can be quite quite bendy so keep your fingers out of the way obviously be very careful not like me the other day and i ended up bashing my thumb but there you go so we want to just very lightly just give them a gentle tap just to give them some stability again if you don't want any flattening of this surface i like the way it looks but if you don't want any flattening then use a nylon hammer which will just um you know give give the wire some working but it won't obviously give it any texture or any flattening okay so this is what we have the next thing we need to do is to bend this guy over okay so here we go so using the smallest step on my plier i position the piece like so just maybe a millimeter or so above where the top of the coils finish okay and then holding here i rotate my plier ever so slightly you see the angle that we have there just ever so slightly just gives it the start and enables this hook shape at the top okay so just ever so slightly and then taking this part here and making these stable with your thumb bend away and downwards okay so that you have this loop can you see that so we've we've bent the loop around okay now you can if you want to leave these guys separated again it gives for a different look i like to come in just very very gently squeeze them together a little which when you do that brings the two coils down slightly you can see the angle as i turn that you see the angle of that i just think it gives it a really nice effect so but if you don't want to do that then just pull them back up a little bit so that they're flat let me see if i can show you what i mean can you see how can you see the bend of that it just sort of brings the coils inwards slightly and gives it a really nice effect okay so that's our piece okay so go ahead and make and do that with all of your lengths of wire and then we'll come back for the next part you're doing really well guys keep going right so give yourself a massive pat on the back because this is brilliant isn't it so we've got all of these pieces here that we've made with real consistency and each one of them should have a very very similar length of loop okay here yeah can you see that so they're all pretty much the same now the next part is how to connect all these guys which is really really simple okay you see how i mean such a beautiful piece i love these this one's from my mum actually so what we do we take our first unit our first piece here and turn it over so the back side is showing like so so the loop is downwards okay on the back side take our next piece okay so with the front side facing so we have the back side facing here the front side facing here turn it so it looks like so okay so the front side the back side okay now that loop here wants to fit through this loop here okay so with a bit of wiggling you see how that happened okay and then with your nail push that one down and that's the first one joined i'll do another one for you so with the back side upwards with the front side upwards and rotate slightly so that that is looking like that and that is the loop facing upwards on the back side that loop goes through this loop here okay you see how that works and then you fold it downwards so that the back side is facing and again push that loop downwards to secure okay so can you see how they're all fitting in i'll do another one back side facing upwards front side facing upwards oops rotate it so it looks like so this hoop through the center of this hoop and pull it like so okay and look how that's starting to look beautiful how gorgeous are these absolutely beautiful so continue with that until you've linked them all okay and then you've made yourself an absolutely beautiful egyptian coil bracelet celebrate have a cup of tea that's what we do here in the uk we celebrate and have a cup of tea okay so do that and we'll meet back and we'll congratulate each other so how did we get on i hope you did okay i hope you enjoyed making this really pretty piece um i've just been having a look at the gold and the silver um and the copper actually you probably do alternating colors or just copper and silver would be really really pretty wouldn't it or gold and silver either there's no end to the combinations you can actually mix metals quite nicely these days it's quite old-fashioned isn't it to say that you have to stick to one metal um but i hope you had a really super time making these guys and i'm just working on the bright sorry silk earring tutorial as we speak so hopefully that will be in a few days so have a lovely week and i'll see you soon bye guys