Affordable Tutorials (2) Inspiration with simple Tutorial - Heart Hoop Earrings

love cymbal earrings ($80.00) on Uncommongoods

I've always been fascinated with hoop earrings. Of course I myself know how hard it is to make one really good. This pair of heart hoop earrings I found from uncommongoods.com. The materials they used are brass, nickel, bronze, guitar string,and steel. However, I think a beginning jeweler can easily pull this off with $10.00 or less.

First, lets look at the materials, and I think we can even make all the brass colored areas gold filled, and it STILL will be MUCH cheaper than $80.00.

Materials
2 heart shaped pendant (similar)
12 inch 49 strand soft flex beading wire, silver (see here, or at your local craft store)
2 10 inch 24 gauge wire gold filled (or base metal) (found here or at your local craft store)

The reason I think 49 strand soft flex is good for this is because we are trying to achieve a perfect circle by relying on the beading wire itself. There is no need to bend the wire, of course you can't bend 49 strand wire and not kink it. The more strands there are in the soft flex, the more flexible they are, and the less likely they are going to kink and not look smooth. This is what we are trying to achieve.

You can first make the hoop with the soft flex beading wire. Braid them like you would braid someone's hair with three strand interlace with each other.
Then, take the 24 gauge gold wire, wrap it around the ends of the soft flex wire to close it up. Make sure to make a wire wrapped loop on the top to attach ear wires, and make a loop on the bottom to attach to the heart pendant.

Now you've made a pair of cute $80 worth earrings all by yourself under $10! Easy and affordable. I think that's what we look for every day in life.

Readers, what are some of your easy and affordable solutions?

Affordable Tutorials (1) - Gold Simplicity Earrings Tutorial - What to buy for Mom - Inspiration

As Christmas is tiptoeing, I have found some new wire wrapped jewelry project. Recently I have read an article about "less is more." In that article, the author argued that sometimes we "try too hard" to make a jewelry. Sometimes, simplicity is the key to beautiful jewelry. So baring that in mind, I have found a couple of easy, cute, and simple earring style for the holiday.

Golden Path Earring ($120.00) uncommongoods

This pair of earrings is easy to DIY. They used an alloy material called Shibuichi in the back as the dark oval shape, and a flat gold strip slightly bent in the front as contrast. This item on uncommongoods is sold for $120.00. But in fact, you can totally DIY it for less than $20. One can easily change the shibuichi into a flat oxidized silver oval teardrop (similar here), and the flat gold strip can be made from simply hammering a 20 gauge gold colored base metal wire or gold filled wire. You can find gold filled wire from here. You can even buy square gold wires. They are a little more expensive than the round ones (see here).
After this, do you still want to pay $120.00 for this pair of earrings? Make it your own for someone special in your family this Christmas!

Here's the material List:
1 pair of ear wire (can be found here)
2 2-inch Gold filled wire (for the gold strip) hammer it flat
2 tear drop silver oval pendant

You will need:
Round nose pliers
Flat/Chain nose pliers
Benchblock
Hammer