Thursday, May 1, 2008

Wire wrapped pendant and chain

I tried something new this week, wire-wrapping some stones to create an abacus-style pendant.

I've seen similar pendants in which multiple stones are strung across, abacus-style. (I think Eni Okin even sells a tutorial.) But I have these interesting cube-shaped malachite beads which I thought might work with a variation of the design.

I was going to try this in silver, but the green malachite just cried out for copper. It took me a a little while to figure out how to get the wire wrapping all around the rectangle, but I finally finished it.

Originally I had planned to put the pendant on a cord, but I thought it would look better on a chain. A problem with working with copper, is that I can never find good copper chains, so I would have to make one myself if I wanted it to be a good color-match with the pendant.

Using 2 different sized mandrels (Ok, I'll be honest, one was a real mandrel, the other was a chopstick - sometimes you have to be resourceful) , I made jump rings and put them together in a pattern of 3 small and 1 large. I also added a handmade clasp.

Then everything went into a quick Liver of Sulfur bath to oxidize, followed by an overnight spin in the tumbler. (Copper is so soft, I've found that if I tumble it for at least 12 hours, it hardens up nicely and I have no worries with jumprings accidentally opening up.)

Tah dah!

I don't think it turned out too badly for my first attempt at this technique.

I just listed the necklace in my Etsy shop and I have plans to do another one in silver and turquoise. Possibly with a different chain - but who knows!





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7 Comments:

  1. Anonymous said...
    Beautiful pendant and very origanal. I liked the way you added it on someone in a photo as it shows even moreso its beauty. You should do well selling pieces like this as it is gorgeous!!
    Best of luck and thanks for sharing
    Enyaeire
    industrialpoppy said...
    Personally I love green stones with copper. Very nice!
    High Desert Diva said...
    Impressive amount of work there!
    Nnairda's said...
    Very clever and it came out nicely!
    Anonymous said...
    Your pieces are beautiful! I'm especially partial to the Lily of the Valley necklace on your Etsy site! Gorgeous! Love that you try a lot of different techniques; so much more interesting (and fun for you, I would imagine) than repeating the same thing, over and over. Very nice work!
    xoxo
    Karen
    Mrs.Kwitty said...
    Oooh, that is really beautiful!! Nice work.
    Smiles, Karen
    Jenna said...
    This is beautiful! Definitely something I would buy-- and wear often.

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