Wire Wrapped Coil Beads - Beginner Friendly Tutorial and a little introduction

Hi everyone, my name's Samantha. I just thought I'd welcome you to my channel and say a quick hello and basically what we're going to be doing on this channel actually. It's my sort of calmness, creativity journey. It's mainly jewellery because that's my passion. I should be dabbling a little bit in crochet maybe, a little bit of knitting. I hope to learn from you guys too. So I'm a little nervous obviously. It's the first time I've ever shown my face on camera. So I hope that's okay with you guys. So my main passion is jewellery like I say and I am pretty much self-taught and I learned a few years ago as a way of helping my mental health. I have quite a busy, stressful life. I have neurodiverse children. I'm a granny. I don't see my grandson as much as I would like but I just inherited a dog. So you'll see a few little sweet journeys with him no doubt. I thought I'd introduce you to the place where I live. I live in the north of England, northwest of England on the coast. It's so beautiful around here. It's very leafy. So I might just pop up a few little videos of my walks. Not with my kids because they're way too busy to be walking with mum. And at the end of pretty much every video we'll go through a tutorial of some description. I'm by no means any expert. I've watched an awful lot of wonderful artists on YouTube. I'm pretty much taught myself from there. It's nice to build a community. I live in a beautiful part of the world actually so it's nice to show you a few bits and pieces from here. So at the end of today's video I'm going to be showing you a tutorial how to make these beautiful beads. I don't know if you can see those. Yeah you probably can which is you know in a series of jewellery making videos that I've done over the past sort of 12 months. I've now got a bit more time on my hands and I thought it might be nice to sort of curate a nice little community here on YouTube. I love YouTube. It's a great way to document yourself too I think. So I'd love to hear from you in the comment sections. Let me know what you're making. Let's you know let's have some fun together. Make some wonderful things together and let's you know sort of share our passion for creativity I think. Makes me calm. Helps my mental health and I think it's a really really good way of expressing yourself. So I shall see you a little bit later on in the video where I'll be showing you like I say these little links and I hope you have fun making them and I'll speak to you soon. Hi lovely souls. Welcome back to my channel and today I thought we would make these little units here. These little coil bead spacer beads if you want to call them spacer beads. You can use them for necklaces as I've done here with different types of beads in between. These are little seed beads and these are faux pearls that we're going to be using today. I'll show you how to make these twisted coil beads. You can also use them for things such as earrings. I mean how lovely does that look? This is just a faux turquoise and a faux pearl but I think you know they look really beautiful. You could use all sorts of different beads including semi-precious if you wanted to or anything you have in your stash essentially. So these little guys are cute, pretty easy to make and you can use them for like I say all sorts of different things. Okay so I'm going to get a materials list going and it's pretty much everything that you've probably got in your stash anyway so you should be okay. Okay so let's have a look. So I'll move these just out of the way a little. So to start with you're going to need some wire and as usual I think certainly if you're beginning it's best just to have a few different wires to hand all the time and I'm going to be using one millimetre wire today. To make the coil we wrap 0.4 millimetre around the one millimetre. Okay so that's for the coil wrap and for the links in between and the part in between that you attach the beads to I'm going to be using 0.8 millimetre wire. Okay so we'll come to all of that as we get going. So you're going to need those three wires. You're also going to need a regular ruler. I'm pretty old in my 50s and I use inches so I know you guys in the stage probably still use inches and so I'll put in the description box below the inch and the centimetre measurements for those of you who like to use centimetres as well. Okay so you need a ruler. You're also going to need a few tools that you've probably already got. Okay so you're going to need a bail making plier for the sixth step or you can use a round nose plier it's up to you. I like to use this one. Consistent loops. You're going to need two sets of chain nose pliers. I like to use a very thin almost needle nose for the close-up sort of work to get right in there to hold things nice and tightly and closely but again just use what you have in your stash. Two pairs of those. You're going to need a pair of decent flush cutters with a straight edge here a flush edge should I say. I advise also that you get a small file. You can buy these relatively inexpensively on big online retailers and that's literally just I'll show you later at the end of the wrap you just might want to just smooth down any sharp edges that there might be. Okay and finally in order to do the wrap itself I use a knitting needle. This is a 2.5 millimetre knitting needle and that yields that kind of size. Let's just measure for you. The unit itself measures approximately a centimetre which is for us guys those old guys about three quarters of an inch. Okay so the two and a half millimetre as you progress with these you can actually make them thicker, thinner, longer, shorter but the ones that I'm going to make for you today are like I say this size and then you can experiment with your own wire sizes, gauges and the lengths of them. Okay so a knitting needle, decent one or a dowel, a wooden dowel would be fine. Okay two and a half, three millimetre for this you know for today's purposes I'm going to be using two and a half. Okay so I'm going to clear away the table and we'll get going. See you in a bit. Fine okay so now we have all our materials together let's get going. So to make one of these little individual beads I mean I've got quite large hands but you can see the size of it there like I say three quarters of an inch centimetre long. Okay you're going to first of all need one millimetre wire. I've worked out for my little units here I mean you might experiment and find that you need a little less or a little more about seven inches okay about 18 centimetres. So cut off your length of wire. I will say at this particular juncture that there are some wonderful wonderful wire artists out there who I will link a couple of them actually in the description box who I watched loads of when I was first starting who do these coil wraps on a continuous long off the spool wire so that there's not a lot of waste which is wonderful. I tend to like to use individual pieces for some reason I don't know and I just sort of suck up the waste and I don't try to lose too much sleep out of it so it's up to you I mean you know have a look at the other videos whether you can do it on a long continuous spool piece but you know for today's purposes I'm going to be using my method. Okay so seven inches and then you bring in your 0.4 millimetre and you're going to need approximately I'd say 12 I don't know 17 18 inches of wire okay so we'll cut that off. So here's your piece of wire just pop that out of the way so it's not getting in the way and this is where we start to wrap this wire around this thicker piece okay so that we create this lovely coil essentially. So starting at this particular part because it's easier to wind pop your wire underneath just wrap it around maybe I don't know a few times three or four times just to get an anchor and then just keep smushing it up okay so that you can you see that it's nice and tight I like to do it at this point in the wire because the winding is easier the coiling is easier okay just excuse my ugly man hands so literally wind your wire around just keep winding and winding as close as you can get making sure that you keep your thinner wire nice and straight no kinks in it the reason I say that is because if you grasp it too tightly and try and coil it round you can actually keep moving the copper wire so that it snaps so my best advice is to let it freely move through these fingers so you can freely move you know you can feel it freely moving which means that you're not grasping it tightly which helps it to not snap okay you'll understand what I mean when you get going and just keep coiling it round like so every now and again just tighten it push it up with your fingernails and then move it down the wire slightly so you've got some space okay just keep going what we're aiming for is a length of about one and a half inches of this so around three quarters of an inch there okay so keep going I hope that's focusing okay for everyone let me move out of the way okay so I'll meet you back when we've got an inch and a half which is just short of four centimeters okay okay so as you can see there we've got around about an inch and a half which measures like I say just just short of four centimeters okay so take your flush cutters and snip those bits off okay so as you can see here we've got the coil around our seven inch piece okay come in with your pliers and just tidy up those edges so they're not you know the sharp little sharp points there I don't know if you can see yes you can good okay this is what we have okay so that's the first part of it done and as you can see we've got the wire around the center we're ready for wrapping it now around the knitting needle or this is the easy part so the way like I say the way I do it is I like to have a you know a singular piece of wire you're quite welcome to have a look at other artists and see how they do theirs but this is how I do mine so I bring in my 2.5 millimeter knitting needle and I anchor the wire here and keeping it nice and firm against the needle I wrap it round a couple of times okay then I push the coiled wire so it meets the knitting needle and then basically hold this nice and firm hold this nice and firm and we wrap around you see how that works and as you're wrapping it around the coils separate just ever so slightly and then one and two okay so for mine I like to have one two wraps after the end of the coil okay and I'll show you why in a second smush it right up you are going to get a little bit of waste here but it's just how I like to do it so it's up to you how you do it okay so can you see where the coil ends you want to cut just there so that you have oops get in focus here okay so that you have a coil ending and then a full wrap and then a half I just think it looks nice and neat okay so let's okay can you see so we have the end of the wrap and then a full wrap and then a half wrap okay come in with your chain nose and just give that just a tiny squish just to tuck it in and then again at the other side okay and how easy is that they're so cute and so versatile if you want to you can now come in with your little file if that's slightly sharp just give it a tiny little file emery board whatever you choose to use just so it's not sharp it's that easy okay so there's your bead wow I mean you know for something that looks so good and so interesting how easy is that you guys can do this no problem nice beginner project okay right so let's get on to the next part you're going to need some beads if you're choosing I'm just going to go and grab mine and I'll be back with you in a second okay so these are six millimeter these are four millimeter and for this particular chain I think they look really pretty so in between the units I've used four millimeter and then for these sections here obviously four six and four okay so let's get going on that these are a very well-known brand of Austrian faux pearls very beautiful beautifully made I like these particularly and these are the four mil ones a couple of those out okay that's what we're using so this is where we bring in our eight millimeter sorry 0.8 millimeter wire so to make the link where this little unit goes on I would say probably you're going to need I don't know two and a half inches we've had a little bit of waste on the other tell you what let's make it three then we've got plenty to be playing with the waste here is is minimal so you can get away with it I think okay so here's your three millimeter wire at three inches of wire should I say and about two thirds of the way along you want to take your chain nose bend it away from you it's about that kind of angle okay bring in your round nose pliers or your six step band making pliers whichever and wind that piece towards you rotate and then away from you so you have this little section here okay take your chain nose bring in your second pair of chain nose and wind this little section around this is just a basic two and a half times and this is just a basic loop you'll know how to do these already I'm sure and if you don't then there's plenty of tutorials on youtube okay so just give that a bit of a smush so it's nicely okay this is what we have so take your four millimeter bead pop it on like so then you take your little coil bead pop that on if you can if you can see but that form four millimeter sits and nestles beautifully in that section there the opening take another okay so there you go how does that look beautiful again with the hoop facing this way you want to make another hoop in the same direction okay so you hold the wire like so wind it away from you and then bring in like the round nose pliers again rotate and away from you okay so you're left with this and then we take the chain nose again and then wind this guy around two and a half times until the bead is secure it's still a little wobbly so bring it around again you want to make sure that this is quite secure okay give it a snip and then as usual smush that into place so that it sits nicely and grasps the bead how beautiful is that that's your first link made okay give yourself a pat on the back make a few more um and we'll meet back and I'll show you how to link these into a beautiful necklace okay so I'll see you when you've made a few of these okay hi guys we're back so hopefully you've made a few of these little units um how beautiful really and like I say you can use different types of beads for this one I've used a little tiny seed well not tiny but I think um probably 11 oh is actually um seed beads uh you know you can see that how different it looks to have some color so let's have a look at how we make these sections in between okay so again eight millimeter wire you're going to want pretty much the similar length just cut off however much you think maybe three inches or so and again using the skill that you've already developed away from you and towards I'll go through this relatively quickly because you know you know already know how to do these probably okay bring in the chain nose second pair and and I like to do two and a half times on these links because I think it looks nice and neat okay snip it off smoosh it's nice and neat okay bring in a four millimeter oops difficult to do with through the camera lens bear with me okay it's actually four millimeter bring in your six okay and then another four okay so this is where we're replicating this little unit here okay so again same direction so that the hoop here is lying like that find it away from you make your hoop make your pliers your nose okay this particular point don't close this up you bring in your coil unit pop it on and you'll feel it snap into place just like that okay this is where your needle nose or your very narrow nose pliers come in handy grasp that nice and firmly around a couple of times two and a half probably hopefully yep that feels good nice and secure snip once you've snipped that off again hold it firmly and smoosh it together so there's no sharp edges and there we go that's how you link all these little beauties together so you can make these as long as you like you can have two of these sections in between each one of these i've used i think oh yes i've made a necklace with nine of those units okay or this one i think has for a smaller neck i think there's five units on this one so you can play around with the units as much as you like and make as many as you want uh let's have a look yep five units on that one nine on that one and obviously for the earrings you just use the one or the two it's up to you the world is your oyster as they say and you can have so much fun with these um have a lot of fun make lots and lots of coils and i'd love to know what you make and if you pop it down in the description below i would love to hear from you um and let me know what you've made okay see you soon