Easy Beaded Wire Bangle Tutorial

Hi everyone this is Gina. Today I'm going to show you how to make a very simple wire bangle with a little decorative beading front here. So you have the bag like this and then you just open it here and then put it back on like that. These are the bracelets I showed you that I was going to do in my last tutorial. So the choker tutorial that I made these are the two that will match those sets. So let me grab one of the necklaces so you can see. Here is the opalite one and here is the bracelet I made to go with it. Very nice looks really good together and I will be making the purple one which goes with this one goes really nice together too today and I will also make one of these. These are also some beads that are in your treasure bag and you can see I've made three of these to stack together. I have a couple of them on right now in the purple color and this one would go nicely with that too. That's how I made them for them to go together like this and I just used for these ones I found some gemstones some larger nice gemstones in my personal stash. This one's turquoise actually and I decided to make something to go with the ones that I had from the treasure bag. You can use any beads you have on hand. I will discuss and try to show you exactly how to adjust according to what you put in front because of course if you have a longer span then you're going to have less wire in the back. If you have a shorter span you're going to have more wire that comes around and you can use any beads you would like to do this. Turns out really nice and it's a very simple process. So let's go ahead and look and see what it takes to these particular bangles. Okay for this project today we are going to be using 12 gauge wire. Now listen to this because I know that a lot of people zoom past this part. This is important. You can find a lot of 12 gauge wire online that is aluminum. We do not want aluminum. It's too soft for this particular project. You want to get silver or gold plated or just bare copper wire. So it needs to be copper wire. This is craft wire. It's silver plated copper and it's 12 gauge and you want to get a decent amount so that you can do a couple of practice bracelets so that you can get your length and the size of your loops and everything down and then with a couple practice and then you can make your pieces because anytime you're learning to work with wire you need a little practice. So I recommend that you get a fairly decent size package or two packages. This was a fairly large package that I think I found at Michaels. I have found the same thing on Amazon and I can post a link. It's a smaller package so I would recommend getting two if you can. Just so that you have enough so that you can play with it or you can make multiple bracelets like I have. So on each bracelet I have adjusted the amount of wire I cut, the size of loops I made, the size of my top that I've made simply because for each one I was practicing and learning exactly what I could do and for each bracelet style I needed it to be a little bit different. So these are three that I've made in kind of a turquoise tone. I've used the three eight millimeter electroplated beads that are in the bag. Here's one I made to match our last project with the shell beads and the opalite beads and then I've made some in purple too and I'm going to do that since I did it with our last video. I'm going to show you how to make this one so that you can do either one of these with your bag and I also made one in purple with the three beads in the bag also that are the eight millimeter round and then I have some really nice amethyst that I made this one out of and this one I made with a nice piece of turquoise from my gemstones personal stash. So I've made a few that I can stack together and if you look at these they look really nice together. Now I know I'm talking a lot for the intro but it is important. So you're going to need a ruler, you're going to need your 12 gauge wire, you're also going to need some 18 gauge wire. Now you can use a smaller gauge for this particular part if you'd like but 18 has been working very well for me. So I'm using 18 gauge and 12 gauge and then I'm going to be using my memory wire cutters simply because this 12 gauge wire is very strong and it kind of damages your regular flush cutters. So you can have your flush cutters out for your 18 gauge but for your 12 gauge use a heavier wire cutter even if you have to get something out of the garage. Then I'm also having out my flat my chain nose pliers my round nose pliers and my regular flat nose pliers just to have them there in case I need them. I also like to have a crimping plier just to push in my extra wires. Not necessary but it's nice to have nylon nose plier and then I have my bailing pliers. You can do this with a regular round nose if you'd like if you'd like a pair of bailing pliers like I'm going to use I can also post a link for that. Again I'm not promoting these products I'm just making the links available because people will ask me where I got what I'm using. So that's what I have. Then I'm also going to be using my little dabbing hammer and a bracelet mandrel. Again I got these on Amazon also um a while back so I'm not sure if I can find the links for them. This is an oval bracelet mandrel and it's metal so I can hammer on it and you can find something round that you can use to make your bracelet. I used to use an olive jar a lot because of the tall skinny green olives it worked well but it's glass so you can't really hammer on it. So you can find something it's really nice to have if you're going to be working with wire it's really nice to have an actual metal mandrel but again you don't have to. So then I also have this little file out you can also use an emery board that you use for your fingernails you can use one of those too. I just like to kind of soften the edges after I cut the 12 gauge wire. So that's what we're going to be using as far as beads are concerned for this particular one that I'm making for the bead bag to match the last set. I'm going to be using about eight of the little disc beads and I'm going to be using three six millimeter round beads and I am going to be using six bead caps of your choice whatever you'd like that fits around your beads nicely. So it's basically going to look like this on this one I used a spacer beads on either side of the pearls and then just the bead caps in the middle. You can do that you can choose anything you want to make this with. On this one for the opalite bag I used my bead caps and three of the six millimeter opalite beads and eight of the disc beads. So you can make this any way you want. So go ahead and gather your things together and we'll get started. Okay so we're going to make this type of bracelet here to match the tutorial I did in my last video. So as you can notice the back portion of this is about three quarters of the way around I mean it's a wide opening here because this span is about two to two and a half inches long when we make the top here. So we're going to cut less wire than we would for say something like this because the wire doesn't go quite as much around. So what we're going to do first is we're going to get our wire. Now I'm making this it's measures to be about oh I would say this is about a seven and a half let me look on my wrist here this is about a seven and a half inch bracelet. So what the measurements I'm giving you here is going to be seven for like a seven and or a seven and a half inch bracelet. So if your wrist is six and a half inches seven inches this is going to work for you. So I'm going to start with about a six and a quarter inch piece of my 12 gauge wire. Now this is on a circle here and it's quite stiff so you want to straighten it out the best you can so that you can measure six and a quarter inches like this. And then I'm just going to hold where the mark is for my measurement and I am going to use my memory wire cutters and just cut this piece. Now I'm going to set this aside for now and I'm going to get a six inch piece of 18 gauge wire. So I've already cut this one and it's about six inches and then I'm just going to grab my nylon nose pliers and just kind of straighten it out. You can straighten this out with your fingers too it doesn't have to be perfect you just don't want any major kinks in it or bends because you want your beads to slide nice on here. So I'm just making sure that it's fairly straight. Again it doesn't have to be perfect. Now I'm going to take my round nose plier and my ruler here and I am going to measure about an inch and a half down on the piece of wire. I'll get you in a little closer here and let me readjust my camera a little bit. And now I am going to place my round nose plier right on that mark that I've measured and I'm going quite a ways down because I want a fairly decent size loop here. So I'm going a ways down on my plier and then I'm going to push the wire over the top of the plier while I'm holding my plier flat like this. Then I'm going to turn my wrist and my plier is now up and down. I'm going to bring this extra length of wire on the other side of the plier over the top of the plier and then I'm going to turn my plier flat again and draw that wire underneath the plier. While I'm holding it I'm going to hold on to both this part and this part of the wire and I'm just going to kind of crank my hand back a little bit so I center that little loop and I'm going to do that again. There we go. Then I'm going to grab my flat nose pliers and I'm going to hold on to the loop. I'm going to position the extra wire the same angle as my plier just like this. Then I'm going to switch my hands just so I can wrap with my right hand and then I'm going to grab my chain nose pliers and I'm going to start to wrap this wire around the long length of wire underneath the loop here and I'm going to wrap it twice and then I'm going to grab my flush cutters and I'm going to cut that wire very close. Then I'm going to grab my cramping tool and in this first divot where it's round here I'm going to squeeze that little piece of wire down so that it's not pokey and now this is what I have just like that and now I am going to put my beads on here. Let me back off just a little bit more. I'm going to start with a bead cap then a six millimeter pearl. On this one I used a little spacer bead in a pearl and a spacer bead and then bead caps too so you can do it any way you want. So I've got a bead cap and then I'm going to pick up a six millimeter round and then a bead cap then I'm going to pick up four of my disc beads onto my wire and then I'm going to pick up another bead cap and I'm going to face the bead cap so that the dished out part is away from my disc beads and then I'm going to put on a pearl and then another bead cap. Now if you're doing the opalite one you're going to do the same order you're just going to be using your six millimeter round opalites and your turquoise color discs. Four more discs a bead cap away from my discs a pearl then a bead cap towards my pearl like this and this is what I have. Now I'm going to grab my round nose pliers I'm going to place them about the same point on my plier as I did last time towards the back here right about there and then I'm holding my beads tight underneath that plier push the extra length of wire over the back portion of the plier turn your wrist so that your plier is now up and down bring the wire over the top and then turn your plier flat again and draw the wire underneath it and then while I'm holding it I'm just going to rock it back away from me a little bit so I center that so now I have a loop like this. Now I'm going to grab my flat nose pliers I'm going to grab onto that loop I'm going to position this wire so that it is the same angle as my pliers here it's a little bent so I'm trying to fix it there we go and switch my hands and then begin to wrap so I'm going to wrap until it two wraps here so now my beads are somewhat tight I may have to go half a wrap here yeah so my beads don't just jiggle around on there and then I'm going to cut this very close and tuck it in with my crimping tool if I can find it there it is and both sides are nice and tucked in and this looks good now make sure that your loops are both exactly at the same angle so you want to make sure that they're both flat like this so you can adjust it if you need to and when we're going to curve this to fit the bracelet we want to make sure that our loops are flat against the bead mat and then we're going to push it forward like this so you don't want to be bending it when the loops aren't flat so you'll get the wrong angle here so I want to make sure my loops stay flat and just very gently angle this and I can angle it more or less as I get my other portion of the bracelet ready so I'm just making a very shallow little arc here like this and then I'm going to set that aside I'm going to grab my 12 gauge wire and I want to straighten it the best I possibly can so that there's no obvious little wrinkles or anything in it and you can do it a lot of it with your hands even though it's very strong wire I'm holding it in my flat nose pliers and then I'm going to grab my nylon nose pliers and just I just don't want it wavy and we can hammer out a lot of it but just get it as straight as you can like this and keep working it here a lot of times if I hold it like this against my bead mat then I can straighten it a little bit better like I said this is a heavy gauge wire so it's kind of a pain but it's not perfect but I can hammer out the rest of Now I'm going to grab my ruler again and I am going to grab my flat nose pliers I'm going to place this on my ruler and I am going to go about three quarters of an inch down onto the wire here and grab onto it with my plier on the outside mark so to the outside of my three quarter inch mark like this and then I'm going to pick it up hold it in my plier nice and steady and bend that wire over just like that so now I have an L shape now I'm going to do the other side exactly the same way so I'm going to find my three quarter inch mark grab to the outside of it hold on to it and make sure that you bend it the same way that you bent this side so we want to go up because this one's up so we're going to go just like this now you can take your plier and arrange it a little bit better also and then I'm just going to try to straighten out whatever I distorted here and now I have like a half rectangle shape here like this I'm trying to keep my wire from looking terrible and make sure both of them are in alignment like that then I'm going to get my bailing pliers now you can make these any size you would like but for what I've cut for the three quarter inch mark I'm going to use this top one the bigger of the top ones right here and I'm going to place that one right on the very end of my piece of wire with the measurement that I want on top of the wire like this and then I'm going to start to bend it back and then I'm just going to kind of bring my plier down and kind of jimmy it around a little bit till I get a little bit further and then I am going to just change my grip on my handle here because I can't really turn the plier over it will be the wrong measurement so I'm just changing my grip and then I'm going to continue to turn all the way around now this is heavy gauge wire that's why it looks like I'm struggling a little bit because it's tough wire so you just have to kind of manipulate it the best you can then we're going to do the same thing on the other side place the measurement I want on the top at the end of the wire start to turn as far as I can then I'm just going to reposition my hand on the plier here so I can continue to turn and I'm just going to keep turning all the way and this is what I have now and now I am going to grab my bracelet mandrel let's back off a little bit here sorry you got a view of the ceiling I think for a minute and let me bring this down here and I have I'm going to have to work on it kind of laying down so you guys can see what I'm doing I'm going to put it a little ways down and I'm just going to start to wrap my wire around it now if you notice my loops are flat against the bead mat that's the way you want to position it so that it they're the proper direction and I'm just wrapping it around I don't know exactly where I want it to be on there yet and you can see it's kind of weird looking right now but I want to see how big I need it to be for this so I'm just going kind of put that there and arrange this out now I can drop it back on my mandrel and I'm going to back off again see if I can do this so you can see it I'm just going to arrange it back on my mandrel at that measurement and then I can kind of push these little circles in and I can take my hammer and I can establish my shape by gently tapping now this is plated wire so we don't want to hammer it to death we just want to gently get the shape that we want so I'm just gently tapping it and on the oval you have to watch that you don't get it off as you're doing it like that because then your shape will be weird you want your shape to stay with the shape of the mandrel let's see what I've got it's still not too great so I do this again I'm going to put it on here and just squeeze these down get it the best I can now I will hammer it out again to make sure it's nice but at this point I just want to make sure I've got the size that I want and that's just about perfect so that's why I like to make this first and of course you can straighten this out or you can bend it in more too to accommodate the space you have but with the measurements that I've giving given you that should work fine and if this is way too big for you or you want a smaller focal then you'll just adjust the way you make your base here and make your little thing first and make it small your little front so that you can adjust your base to it and then I'm going to just kind of adjust this in a little bit now I'm going to take one side of my loop here I'm going to select a loop and I'm going to get my flat nose pliers and I'm going to raise this loop up and I'm going to drop this down with the curve that I've created out and then I'm going to close this so you're just cranking it up and then you're closing it back down now on this side and adjust that I am going to cut this loop so that I have an opening to put this side on so I'm going to grab my cutters where are you and I think I'm going to go just a little ways in here and get you closer so you can see so I think I'm going to cut right about here and you can adjust this it's better to cut less than more at first and if you need to cut more that's fine okay here then I am going to grab my round nose pliers and I'm just going to kind of bring this in so I'm putting it towards the end and I'm bringing it in for more of a kind of a hook look like this and then I'm going to bring this around and I'm then going to squash this down a little bit my flat nose very gently just squash it down so that it retains your bracelet top a little bit better now you can adjust this several times you can take this portion and move it up a little bit if you need to you can move it down you can do whatever you need to do to make it work I think I want to bring this in a little tighter like this and then you may have to put it on and adjust it some more too now the back portion of my bracelet is still wonky so I have opened my bracelet here and actually I'm going to close it and put it on here so I know exactly where I want to adjust it to so I've closed it let me get out here so you can see and I've just dropped it on the bracelet mandrel like this right there is where I want it and I don't want to push it too crazy because I don't want to make it huge I just want to form the back of my bracelet nice and pretty so that it doesn't have all these weird angles to it or look like it's been squished I'm just going to tap it until I get it to look the way I want it to look you may have to take it off look at it and do it a couple times yeah it's still not quite the look I want still got kind of a funky shape so I'm just going to continue doctoring it up and it has a lot to do with the fact I'm using an oval if I get it off the oval shape just a little bit then I get one side kind of wonky but um yeah that looks better and you can see there's my previous one here's my opalite one and I made I started making really big loops when I very first started um so that made me have less wire to work with too because I had these great big loops and then I decided I don't need that big of a loop with this one I'll probably draw it in a little bit with my round nose plier too because it's kind of big but you can adjust it and so you can lift it you can also adjust the angles of your um front part so that when you put it on it will go on and off easily let's see this one so now I'm going to try to put it on and you would think this would be really easy to clasp but it's not that easy to clasp so let's see if I can do this pretty fast you have to get your angle just right on your wrist all by yourself and sometimes it's not so easy there we go but I did it but I did it and that's what that looks like and boy is that cute and it does stay pretty well I mean it looks like it should just fall right off but it really doesn't it stays on there pretty nice and my hook isn't too bad I can bring it in a little bit more too if I feel like it needs to come in a little bit more I can do that too now um I've made some matching ones with the um three beads like this and what I've done is when I made this one I cut seven inches of wire and that way it's come around more and the little loops are close so I've done the exact same thing with this one that I did with this one I just made it longer and then I can just grab another piece of 18 gauge wire and make my front for this now I did use a couple little spacer beads and these little weird kits I've been using these like crazy really good investment I guess so I'm going to grab this little kit that I've shown you in the last couple videos there's these two little flat rondelle type of beads here you can use any spacer bead you want or none at all it doesn't matter I'm going to cut another length of 18 gauge and six inches is probably too much but I'm going to cut that if I can find my flush cutters and I am going to grab my round nose pliers again and you can make these I made one with some amethyst that was in my own stash I made one with a piece of turquoise and a couple bead caps and I really like this one I wore it around all day and it stayed on nice and it worked really good so you can grab whatever beads you have in your stash and you can just make your base make the front first and then make your base to adjust I just happen to know that this one needed to be longer and closed so I already made the base excuse me and now I'm going to push that over the top like that just like I did before and make it a little further down so my loop is wide bring it around just like I showed you before and grab my flat nose pliers where are you where are you there you are I lose everything as I do this it could be right in front of me and I won't see it and drive myself crazy with it I swear that there's a hole in the ozone layer that all my stuff flies through I know there I know there is and then I'm going to wrap it twice just like that cut it squeeze it down straighten up my wire then I'm just going to put on a spacer spacer bead and three of these eight millimeter beads these stack really nice with um the others so I made one in the teal like it's in your opalite bag they stay they stack really nice with these and then I made a turquoise one for this stack and a purple one for this one these are actually really nice amethyst beads um nice expensive gemstones and I decided I'm going to use those because they're so pretty so they stack nice so I'm going to put my three beads on and my spacer bead and then again I'm going to grab my round nose pliers positioning it to where when I make this loop it's going to be the same direction as the loop on the other end so I'm going to push that over bring my wire over the top bring my wire underneath and position my hand back a little so that I center my loop then I'm just going to pick up not those no these and I'm going to switch my hands because my right hand is the only one that's worth a darn and I'm just going to start turning my wire until I tighten my beads on there and right about there is good and then I am going to cut this tuck it in and then again put these flat and then push them forward away from me like that see if that works and then I'm going to kind of just draw this out a little bit because it's in a little too much and once I draw that out and get it where I think it should be then I'm going to put it back on my mandrel back off here I've got too much stuff everywhere yes I was going to say the other word but I decided I wouldn't so you know I'm being nice which is a rare occasion usually I sit down here and cuss at my beads yes I do I really do I will admit it there we go now I can put this one on by opening this with my flat nose pliers again you're just going to crank it open and drop on one side and usually I kind of look and see which side has the bigger loop and I put the smaller loop on this side and then I close and then make sure I dropped it on with my angle correct I did now I can kind of doctor this over and put that on there see what I've got now I am going to I think that cut that I made is fine but I'm going to kind of squish it in now just do this gently guys very slowly and gently and let's see if I made it worse or better I might have turned it in a little bit much but it's not too bad now I can grab my mandrel again open this up put this back on the mandrel and you can see that that just dangles there and then I can get my position correct so that I don't distort my shape and then I can shape it up again this will work hard in it help it keep its shape as you wear it and just make a nice shape for you so that your bracelet is pretty like that and gosh there's stuff everywhere oh my goodness and now I have another bracelet now you need to sometimes adjust these I'm going to bring this down a little bit and put it on a couple of times and see if it works if you're having a hard time with it then adjust it some more so this I could use a little bit of angle in on this so I'm going to grab my pliers and just angle this in a little yeah and angle that out a little so that it will clasp for me better it takes a little adjusting you have to work with it a little bit so that you can get it to clasp nicely and just doing it by yourself is a pain in the rear end anyway but it does work putting on bracelets is always such a joy there we go so that's what those look like and then I have my purple one this one I think I made smaller I think I would put it towards the front of my wrist here oh poopa nanny okay so just make sure that when you put it on the loops aren't all tangled together you want it nice and organized so that you can and I haven't really messed with this one much so I'm not really sure if it yeah it's in a pretty good angle there yeah so now I have some stacked bangles and they turn out really pretty and like I said just um play with it a little bit make a couple make one keep making adjustments to it cut it change it do whatever you have to until you kind of get an idea of the size that you want around the back of your wrist how much space you want in the front what beads you're going to use and then you can I've made several so now I pretty much know just by looking at it what size I'm going to need I knew I needed for this one I I needed a little less space in front so I cut a little bit more wire so I cut seven inches for this one this was um three or six and a quarter um this one was probably about six and a half I would say and also it makes a difference on how big you make your loops now like with these I made my loops bigger so I had to I had a little less wire to work with as far as around the front too so you can make your loops bigger if it looks like you don't have enough space for whatever it is you put in the front or you can make your loops smaller so that all of that just works together and it makes a really pretty set so let me grab the opalite one since I have the purple ones on and here's the colors I've made to go with this necklace so I made this little choker in the last video and they are really cute together yeah where's the earrings oh no I lost my earrings well there's one and my cat gets up on my desk and kicks myself around and you know let's have someone to blame for my disorganization huh okay so I can't find the other earring it's floating around here somewhere and as soon as I turn the camera off I'll find it but you get the gist that is what that set looks like I guess I should actually show it to you let me see and that is what that set looks like I think that that's really cute and then the purple one of course goes really good with these so anyway that's a little bracelet that you can play with and I hope you enjoyed doing that just make sure to get copper plated wire don't get aluminum wire because it won't hold its shape or the darn it's just way too soft you don't want it to be that soft you don't want it to be hard like memory wire but you don't want it to be really really really soft either so the copper plated craft wire is good and like I said I found one that you can reference I'll put a link to it that's on Amazon and even if you don't buy it there then you can know what it is I'm using and you can probably I think I bought this one at Michael's so there's probably several places different breed distributors and such that you can get it from anyway thanks for putting up with my rambling I've had way too much caffeine and I hope you have a spectacular day bye