I wish I had these tips when I first started out in jewelry making. While for some people these are simply common sense by now, for those who are just starting out in jewelry making these should help you make your life easier and more comfortable when working with wire or any other kind of jewelry material.
Work directly from the spool. There are times when this is just not possible, however for the most regular things such as coiling wire, avoid pre-cutting it since you might end up with a smaller piece than you original wanted and have to cut some more. And particularly with wire the less 'lose end' wire sticks you have, the better for the piece and the wearer. Also you might be cutting a bigger piece than you need, so the remaining one will be wasted. Copper might not matter much, but silver and gold is not cheap.
Use a magnifying lamp, such as the Magnilamp (which is extremely cheap at Amazon). Trust me the difference is amazing particularly when it comes to helping your eyes through the strain of the very small work, and making more beautiful work.
Check out the difference in the wire:
- without a magnifying lamp
-
with a magnifier lamp
- with the extra magnifier setting
Use two monitors. I know this does not apply directly to jewelry making or wire wrapping but trust me when you're many hours at your computer (especially when your craft desk or table also happens to be your pc table, just like in my case), having two monitors makes your life much, much easier. I use one monitor for browsing the internet using various tabs, and the second one for local harddrive, or working from the pdf tutorial - like in my case, I have one monitor open on Eni's older site looking at the various tutorials picture deciding on which one to do, and on the left side monitor I have the actual pdf open, ready to work.
I will post more beginner tips as I get a chance to take some more shots of various things around my craft table. I hope these tips are helpful to newcomers to wire wrapping and jewelry making in general. Comment away if you have other tips or you have other experiences with the above.
was quite busy this week with my business, however I managed to squeeze in two quick pairs of sterling silver earrings. The green stone is jade and the red is agate done in herringbone weave with a clear quartz briolette hanging from a sterling silver chain at the bottom. I guess silver chain was the motif this week for both pairs :) I had a few shorter chain ends which I wanted to use somehow. And this is one tip for people who have lots of lose ends of wire or chain or even 1-2 beads. You can very easily incorporate them in your new jewelry pieces like I did with the chain links for both earrings.
