Famous Jewelry Collections: THE BEADING GEM'S JOURNAL

Monday, March 7, 2011

THE BEADING GEM'S JOURNAL

Posted: 07 Mar 2011 04:00 AM PST

Last year, I tried making my own wire name pendant and hunted around for some tutorials. This form of wire work sure requires practice and a firmer wire, not soft tempered.

Most of the wire artisans judge the distances required to make the letters purely by eye and experience. If free form work is still not on, check out the Wire Name Pendant tutorial by Faith on Cut Out and Keep which illustrates a simple solution. Don't you just love her DIY wire wine glass charm?

Use a Template
What Faith did was write out her name first on a piece of paper. Writing the name down using one continuous line makes it clear:

how the wire should be bent
how the name will attach to the chains
how to start the name so there is a minimum amount of wire backtracking.

The written name also becomes a template to check against during the construction of the name.

For additional tips on wire name writing, check out the list from Megan Shoop on eHOW. Professional wire name writer Kay Bell recommends capital letters are from 1/2- 3/4 inches tall and small letters from 3/8-1/2 inches tall. She also suggests using your computer to find and print out suitable scripts.

Use a pegboard
A better way is to use a jig with removable pegs. The Artistic Wire writing tool might be useful too. It`s a simple plastic pen-like implement with a groove down one side to take the wire. I couldn't fully test it out as I only bought the main tool without the matching jig set. I tried it out on my regular jig and liked the ease of guiding the wire around the pegs. But my jig hole spacing is not correct for forming letters. So if anyone has this tool set, do let us know if you like it for wire name writing!

Now for some freehand demos! Check out the three videos from onomaenterprises which showcases how the name Madison is made.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Wire writing is not confined to necklaces. Check out this inspirational piece : Justlori's Love Bracelet on Cut Out and Keep, made with very thick copper wire.