Some of you guessed from
the post earlier this week that the faux solder was actually resin. And maybe you are now wondering why didn't I use just glue. Well, glue is kind of messy and you'd need a fair amount to get a twisted wire creation with Swarovski crystal flowers to stay on. I prefer the resin because you can lather on a goodly amount and then it "molds" itself to the design with surface tension.
This is a very easy tutorial to do. I used long tags which I received from
Nunn Design. But the tutorial can be used for other shapes besides the rectangular ones.
- metal blanks
- Ice Resin from Fire Mountain Gems or other retailers
- 26 or 28 G wire
- Swarovski marguerites, 6 mm or whatever size works with the metal blanks
- contact paper for lining shelves
Cut a wire length of about 14 inches. String on the marguerite to about the halfway point. Bend the wire and begin to twist the two halves together.
People twist wire differently. My way (and by no means the best) is to grasp the wire tightly with my right hand and to twist the wire on the flower end with my left hand. You can also use a pin vise to do the holding. (
see tutorial) Note that I am right handed. So lefties might wish to reverse things.
Twist for a short distance down. Then string another crystal flower onto the left wire end and double it. Then twist that "branch" too.
You can add as many "branches" as you like, The "leaves" you see on the copper version is just untwisted wire with no marguerite.
Test out the position of the flowers on the tag. They can either stay within the edges of the tag or protrude a little. The good thing is you can easily manipulate the wire.
Prepare the tag by pressing it firmly down onto the adhesive side of a piece of contact paper. This is just a precaution in case you have a resin overflow into the hole of the metal blank. If this happens, let the resin set and then drill out the resin.
Mix up some resin (make sure you have other resin projects ready to go so you use up the resin batch effectively) and spread some onto the tag. Use a toothpick to move the resin. Then slowly place the twisted wire work piece onto the resin. Carefully add more drops of resin in places which seem short of the stuff.
Add bails, jump rings and necklace chains and you're done!
Disclosure Photography I used my iPhone 5, camera+ app and Modahaus TS320 Tabletop studio (natural light for final photographs; artificial lights in my basement studio for tutorial shots). Tip : move designs around and take different "poses". Some might be better than others! Check here for for info on my
How to Photograph Jewelry webinar classes.
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