About

Cost: $ $ $ $ $

Difficulty: • • • • •

Time: 5 mins

Put your own personality into this basic ring design!
I wanted to post some projects on here, so I went to my jewelery stash. At first, I was overwhelmed, wondering which ones I should post since obviously it would take years to do them all! Then, I realized that most of my rings are made with 8 basic designs. Each one has infinite variations, and I took pictures of a couple of mine to get you started. But I wanna see YOURS ( please post them as variations so i can see)! Sorry about the paint images, but obvi my webcam sucks and I'm not a great photographer anyway- it's simpler this way :).

Yeah;; rings are kinda my thing.

Posted by Shannie W. from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • Published 5th October 2009 • See Shannie W.'s 2 projects »

Print • Embed

Key West Witch added Ring Type 1: Vertical Wire to Rings 30 Jun 07:41

Step 1
Cut your length of wire. You will get better at guessing how much you'll need, depending on the size of your beads/finger. About 6 inches should get you through. Now, bend a *small* amount of wire over itself with your pliers. Now squeeze it together tight. Round-nosed pliers probably wouldnt work so well here.
Step 2
Variation: Instead of just folding the wire over, try making a spiral, loop, or what ever shape you like. You could also try hammering a short section flat before putting the bead(s) on. Make sure you cut enough extra wire.
Step 3
Put your bead(s) on. Sometimes the bead hole will be to big. If this is the case, put a smaller bead on first so it doesn't slip off. I usually use a swarovski crystal for this.
Step 4
Bend the wire under the beads at a 90 degree angle. Then place the whole thing on the ring mandrel (or whatever you're using to size your ring) and wrap the wire around once. You will still have a tail of wire.
Step 5
<< Top View

Wrap the tail around under the bead until it runs out or you like the effect, then snip the rest off. I also like to hammer-finish the band because I think it looks nicer and it's good for makign the ring just a little bigger. Probably don't do it on a chapstick tube or anything, but it works great on a metal mandrel.
Step 6
Variation:
It's kinda hard to tell, but in the second photo I've done something a little different. Instead of spiraling the wire around *under* the bead, I worked *up* it for a kind of half-cage effect.
Step 7
You're done! Go show off your new ring! Do refrain from punching people with it on though... some of these don't play well with the eye area. Of course if your retna's itchy or you're getting kidnapped or something, do what you gotta :)