Wire Wrapping the Bracelet Below

What you'll need:

28 ga wire, dead soft
22 ga wire, dead soft
two jump rings
clasp and clasp end
round nose pliers
half-round pliers if you have them
chain nose pliers
flush cutters
a lot of 2mm beads
5-7 beads for the body of the bracelet (quantity depends on size and shape of bead)
Flat surface to work on.
Patience

To create this bracelet (which is not yet finished, because life got in the way) I cut 6 strands of 28ga dead soft sterling wire to a length of approximately 16 inches each. I use dead soft because as you wrap, the wire work-hardens, and if you're not using dead-soft, the wire will become brittle and could easily break in the middle of a wrap. That's no fun.

1. Gather the wires in your hand and smooth them out - just hold them together by the ends in one hand and "smooth" them out with your other hand - this will take a little of the coil out of the wire.

2. Make your clasp eye end. I used the wide end of my round nose pliers, but you could use anything that will make it round and the size you want. It should be small since you will add a jump ring to it. Remember this when you're adding beads - as this will add length to the bracelet. Grasp all 6 wires in the pliers and bend, leaving about 1/4 inch at the bottom of the loop. Holding the loop in your pliers, in one hand, use your chain nose pliers to crimp the bottom of the loop together on both sides - this will bring the extra 1/4" of the loop flush with the opposite 6 wires. You will have a double thickness of wires now.

3. Cut a 6" piece of 28ga wire and begin wrapping toward the loop from the bottom of the 1/4 inch extra portion. The cut ends need to be covered, so you will need to start just a hair below. Wrap all the way up to the bottom of the loop and then continue on wrapping the loop itself. You should end on the bottom side of the loop opposite the side where you started.

4. Cut your wrap wire and crimp the end down smoothly with your chain nose pliers. Not: if possible, don't use ANY pliers on metal that have teeth. They will leave marks.

5. Next, lay the entire length of wire out on your work table and find the two middle wires. Bend the other four away from the middle wires, in opposite directions.

6. Thread the bead of your choice on the two middle wires - I used flat MOP disks - they were much easier to work with than round beads, but you can use whatever you want.

7. Push the bead up tight against the other wires. Choose one of the two middle wires and bend it at a right angle away from the bead. this will be your wrap wire.

8. Bring two wires smoothly across the front of the bead and two wires smoothly across the back of the bead.

9. You should now have five wires at the end of the bead - two coming over the top, and two coming up from the bottom and one in the middle. Crimp those wires together - I just use my fingernails and bend the wire as tightly up against the end of the bead as I can.

10. Take the middle wire that you separated out in step 7, and wrap the other wires with it, wrapping tightly and close together 7 times.

Repeat this process until you have the bracelet the size you want it, prior to adding the clasp hook.

11. At the end of the beads, make another loop exactly like the one you made when you started. Remember to make it small, as you will add a small jump ring and a lobster clasp to it.

12. Now cut some 22 ga wire. You will use this to wrap the intervals between each bead that you've already wrapped with the 28 ga wire. Using the 22 ga lends strength and stability to the bracelet. Wrap each interval, making sure to keep it tight, close and to flatten your ends as well as you can. If possible, smooth them with a cup burr before you start wrapping - this will keep the wires from catching or scratching.

13. Cut a 28ga wire twice as long as the bracelet and add 4 inches. This is the bead stringing wire.

14. Start by wrapping the bead stringing wire tightly around the small space between the starter MOP disk and the clasp end. Wrap tightly. String 2mm beads on the wire until they meet the end of the bead, framing the edge of it. Holding the wire tightly at the bottom of the bead, wrap it around the first interval station three times, with your wire feeding in the opposite direction from the first strand of 2mm beads. Start stringing your 2mm beads again and repeat the steps in the preceding sentences.

You'll be doing half of a figure 8 all the way down one side and then when you reach the end of the bracelet, start on your way back up.

15. Once you've finished the 2mm beading, end by wrapping the wire between the clasp end and the end of the first bead and cut the wire, flattening it so the end doesn't pop up.

16. Attach your clasp ends - you can use whatever kind you choose - I chose a lobster because it's easer to clasp than some.

17. Bend the bracelet (which should be fairly strong and well-hardened by this point) until it fits around your wrist, use your pliers if needed to straighten and flatten areas that need it, put it around your wrist and wear with pride!

More photos coming, but I can't promise them tomorrow. :) Post here or contact me if you have questions. I'd make short videos for it but I'm unfortunately not set up to do that. :(

Bracelet By The Seat of My Pants

So I decided to do some wire wrapping tonight. I thought I'd make a bracelet. I started 5 hours ago, with no clue what I was going to do, so I made a clasp end and went from there. It's all sterling and those are mother-of-pearl flat beads. The MOP frames are 2mm sterling beads. This is as far as I've got with it and I'm putting it up for the night.

It just sort of morphed along, taking shape as I watched (listened to) three movies. Such a socialite I am - at home on a Friday night, watching movies and making a wire-wrap bracelet by myself. Snort.

Making Eye pins and Head pins and when you shouldn't work-harden them

...she said sheepishly after making several dozen head and eye pins and hardening them and then attempting to use them to attach crystals to a silver bracelet, first looping and then wrapping. It's the wrapping part that clued me in. Better to use dead-soft silver, make your pins, and set them aside specifically for those beads where you need to loop around a link and then wrap. It's much easier using dead soft because the wrapping hardens the wire.

Duh.

Online Business For Dummies (Okay, you're not a dummy, but I was!)

A few things regarding the starting and running of your online business. Sometimes, in the rush to make money, we all wake up some mornings and leave our common sense on the night stand. Sometimes it stays there a long time. If it's any interest to you at all, here are a few directives I subscribe to, with regard to managing an online business:

Starting an Online Business For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech)) (this is because I was an online business dummy!)

Just do it. It's very easy to sit around and think about it. If you think it's a great idea; if you're pretty sure you can make money at it, then just do it. Thought without action will net you a big fat zero.

Don't allow your emotions to run your business.

Be realistic. Learn to say NO to the lure of riches. Once you get started and those first sales start rolling in, it will be tempting to jump all over opportunities to make even MORE money and to jump hard. If you're not careful, you'll soon find yourself over-extended. I got myself in that pickle a few years ago and it was a twisty and exhausting effort to meet my commitments.

Be realistic. Oh, did I just say that? Well, I'm saying it again, for another reason. See next paragraph

Do your research. What is it you want to sell? Is it truly marketable? How big is the market for your widget-thing-whatever? Is there anything similar selling? How is yours better or different? Something about what you have to offer MUST be different and better if you want customers. You know what customers are. They're different from window-shoppers. Customers actually BUY.

Do your research. Yup, you're in an echo chamber. Now that you know what you're going to sell, what's the fair-market value for it? How do you do this? You research. You search online shops that sell items similar to what you're going to sell and you find out if the items are selling. Make lists. You want to sell earrings that are made of precious metal components and high-quality beads. You think they're worth at LEAST $50. Okay. Go do your research, find 30 pair of similar earrings THAT HAVE SOLD, write down the prices, throw out the high and the low and average the rest. That's your fair-market value. Don't be surprised if it's not what you thought it should be.

Undercutting your competition won't always get you the sale. Bottom line is Customer Service. Are you willing to take those extra few steps for your customer, regardless the size of their order, and regardless that it's past your bedtime (here in the US) and they are in another country, wide awake and awaiting a reply from you? If you're not, don't even start the business. Are you willing and able to fulfill custom and special orders? It's a good idea to set yourself up to be able to do this, but to also set realistic time-frames for them. Then, MEET the time frame.

Market yourself. If you are using a site like Artfire or Etsy, you can't rely on their tagging system to do all your marketing for you. Put yourself out there. Make noise and lots of it. Prove that you are knowledgeable with regard to your product. How do you do this? We live in an electronic age. There's this thing called the Blogosphere. Use it. Create several blogs. Utilize the tools on each blog to feed your products to it. Make sure the blog name contains a relevant search term for your business. Mine is the sale of jewelry supplies with a focus on Swarovski beads and prisms. While my blog urls don't have Swarovski in them, my blog names DO have it. It's a hugely relevant search term and it's not broad or general. If I'd simply called my blog "Bead Addiction" I wouldn't be getting the click-thru traffic I'm getting right now to my online shops. My blog wouldn't show up in search results. Be product specific. If you want someone to land on your blog, call it something that has some relation to your business. My business name is ArgentSol. It means "bright sun." That's NOT what I'm selling. I'm selling, primarily, Swarovski items, so that's my primary relevant search term.
When blogging, always be aware of google search terms. You want to use as many of them that are relevant to your product as possible. How will you know what words to use? Do Google searches on your type of product using what you think would be the best search words. See what comes up. Then do a Google search on: "what is the best Google search term for (your product).

Google Adsense. If you can get it to work. Right now, mine's not working and I'm not happy. Google is sending me a PIN so I can talk to them about it. Adsense is a Google widget that feeds pay-per-click ads to your blog. You will want them fed to the right hand column of your blog, and if you can do it, beneath posts. Use your footer for it too. You have to have an Adsense account to do it and it costs you nothing. There is a psychology to the placement and color of Adsense ads, and the most successful blog entrepreneurs follow that psychology and rake in scads of money from click-thrus. It's another source of income for you.

Don't get discouraged if you're not seeing sales right out of the starting block. Instead, investigate. On sites like Artfire and Etsy, if you see other sellers with your type of widget, and they are selling like gangbusters, take a look at their sites and see what's different from yours. Email them. Ask them what they did to optimize. I'd warrant they have a website out there someplace that drives traffic to their shop(s). I don't know a successful online seller in a community like Etsy or Artfire who does NOT have a blog and/or a website.

Be prepared to spend a lot of time up front getting it right the first time. Better that than a lot of time down the road fixing a mess. I know, because I've been there.
Take time for yourself. It's too easy to allow this monster you're creating to eat up every spare minute you have. Set a routine. If it is your primary source of income, set a work schedule, if necessary.

Organize. Very easy to say. Very hard to do. I'm a one-woman show, so I have to do it all. Everything. I'm the purchasing department, customer service department, inventory control manager, order fulfillment department, accountant, admin assistant, and tech support guru for my business.

Ship. Posthaste, post-payment. Get it to them FAST. They'll come back for more. One shipping screw up can cost you 20 new customers because it will show in your feedback, if your shop has a feedback section.

Stop worrying about housework. If, like me, you are running an inventory-heavy business, odds are very good that at least one room, if not more, in your house will look like a nuclear warhead loaded with boxes and padded mailers plowed through. Just deal. Tell everyone else to either deal, or do the housework themselves. Once the money comes in you can hire a maid.

Okay - enough for now. I have things to do - like shipping. I could expound on each of these items and time would slip away. What I DO know is that my blog is driving traffic to my store. I know my search words are working. How do I know this? Because I've had 91 sales in the past 2 weeks. Not really a lot, but a decent start. In another month, I expect that number to be much higher.

Silver Bet

Yesterday, the information I got from a wholesaler's feed is that raw Silver was at 37.90. Today it is at 38.06. I spent two days agonizing over whether I should buy a dealer’s last 4 ounces of 26 ga round silver wire at $37.99. Wow. Glad I did. At this rate, it’ll be over $50 a troy ounce by early June. Actually, I bet it hits $50 before then.

I'm curious, though. Every site I've checked - Kitco, Monex, CNN Commodities, Silver Market News Online and a few others - all have silver at around $36.80 this morning, up from yesterday. So I emailed my wholesaler to find out where they are getting their price and if it is actually a silver-to-gold ratio, which is actually around $39 - and would help to make sense of the price they have on their site.

Still, silver is going up, up, up.

Something I found out this morning - you can buy silver wire directly from Kitco with no minimum order. I'm going to get a quote from them - who knows - maybe they're way cheaper than anyone else, since they deal in such huge bulk.

Wire Wrapping Techniques

I've found a video that clearly show how to do a basic wire-wrapped loop for your creations and also provides some good creative inspiration. I've also included a few links for how-to books that you can purchase from Amazon.

Simple Wrapped Loop for Earring, Necklace or Bracelet Component.
In this video, Monica very clearly demonstrates what I've heard some folks find to be rather difficult to do. It's an easy technique, but requires practice. Something she doesn't say is this: Make sure you're using half-hard or dead soft wire. Wire that is already work-hardened is terribly difficult to wrap in any way. This means you may have to buy some wire to create your own eye pins. I'll include a link for that too.



Here's a link for a good basic wire wrapping book:  More Wirewrapping: The Basics and Beyond

This is also a good book with great images:  Wirework: An Illustrated Guide to the Art of Wire Wrapping

And if you need good quality wire in half hard or dead soft you can get it here:  Sterling Silver Wire Half Round Half Hard 22 Gauge 5 Ft   I would actually suggest browsing this individual's items if you're going to be doing more wrapping than just coiling around an eye loop.  She's got good prices on 26 ga wire  which is an excellent gauge to use for wrapping.  28 gauge is great also.  Actually, her price on the 26 ga half hard is better than I've seen anywhere else.  Wonder how she's doing that, since she's only making $2 on this sale.  The price of raw silver closed at just over $35 a troy ounce today and she's offering 1 troy ounce for $37.99.

If you look at this woman's bracelet, it is crafted completely from sterling wire.  She's used chain maille for some of the linkage work. I own this book:  Beaded Chain Mail Jewelry: Timeless Techniques with a Twist (Lark Jewelry Books) and it's an invaluable tool for making Chain Mail (or maille, if you're fancy) jewelry.

Blue Lace Agate Dilemma

So - I've had this agate for years. I've looked at it, fondled it, hidden it, wired it, unwired it, played table football with it. Until tonight. Tonight, while watching the BBC production of "The Way We Live Now" (David Suchet is sooo sleazy in this production!) I hit on what I wanted to do.

So I pulled out my sterling wire, my wonderful Grobet pliers and my wire cutters. That's when I realized I couldn't find my flush cuts. They sucked anyway and the ones I REALLY want are these: Lindstrom Sidecutter,Flush Pliers because they REALLY ARE flush cutters. Most pliers squeeze the wire too much while cutting, leaving you with an angled and very sharp edge that you have to then file down. These don't. How do I know this? Cuz my silver smithing instructor had them at the studio. They're marvelous. But I digress - this isn't a post about pliers.

Anyway, I've got the agate nicely framed, but my dilemma is how to get the frame to stay on the agate. It positively won't act like a bezel and I'm beginning to think I need this: Wire Wrapping: The Basics And Beyond because I'm just NOT coming up with a great idea regarding how to keep this stupid frame/bezel, whatever you want to call it, on the agate.

Here are some photos. I'm thinking I need to criss-cross wire across the back, wrap once around each corner of the frame and then end with little wire spiral "prongs" - one in each corner of the stone. The stone is gorgeous, and I'd like not to have anything on the front of it, but I don't think I can get away from it, not with cold connections.

Here are four photos of what I've done so far. Anyone with ideas, please post comments!