Wire and Glass Bead Rings

Over the summer, my sister and I made these rings for our summer school, where you do art and building and writing classes and stuff. One of the classes was jewelry, and you were able to sell the things you make. So we made these rings. I saw the project in a book in the library. I memorized the directions, but now I can't find the book. Oh well.

This is my very first ring:

And this is a plain wire rosette ring:

The rings were a success. We earned about $60. For some odd reason, people didn't want to do custom orders. They'd just choose the prettiest ring, force it onto their finger, and leave, even when I offered to do it to accommodate their horizontally challenged fingers. Some of the rings were pretty small, but for others we modeled them after a giant yellow highlighter, and this seemed to be more popular among customers. This one porky girl came up, grabbed the most elegant ring, jammed it onto her pinkie finger, paid, and left. She came back, and I was worried she'd want to return it or something. I noticed her finger was slightly purple. But instead she just said, "I am a very satisfied customer," and she left. Whatever. Whatever floats your boat, right?

Tutorial

(Sorry the x" is backwards. The camera on the computer takes pics backwards. So that's why the numbers are all wonky, cuz I drew them backwards)

Materials: wire, needle nose pliers, at least five beads (well the weird wired orange peanut-looking one only had one bead, but it was a slightly different design.)

1. Cut a piece of wire, about 18"- 24" long. Measure the circumference of your finger, and mark the measurement on your wire.

2. At the mark, bend the wire at a 90 degree angle. You will have what looks like a straight 7.

3. Now take the long end of the wire and make it into a loop.

4. With the rest of the wire, tightly wrap around the part where you marked the ring. When you're done, bend the wrapped wire around your finger, and tuck the two little ends into the loop and twist together.

5. Cut a piece of wire 10-12" long. Place it through the loop on your ring base and slide a bead on. Weave the wire into the loop.

6. Take the other end of the wire and put a bead on. Weave it through the ring.

7. Repeat till you've run out of beads, or until your finger can't take the weight and you think it may fall off. Wrap any remaining wire around the base of the bobble. Wear. When people ask you where you bought it, tell them you made it. Or that it was $80 at Anthropologie. Either way.