Charoite Sterling Silver Wire Wrapped Earrings

I love this detailed wire wrapping but wow does it take time. I'm using 26 gauge square wire here for the wrap rather than round wire and I'm finding that I enjoy using the square wire more. I think I have more control over the bands and they lay flatter... personal pref on that, but for those new to wire, you'll discover that round wire is great for some applications and square wire for others. There are various gauges and colors and metal types to choose from and you will soon come to find your preferences of wire for the various projects you make. I like to use 18g round wire as frame wire. I normally hammer the wire frame to add strength and I like to use 26g as the banding wire and like I said earlier, the wire used here is square. The silver accent beads are 1mm sterling silver as are the earring hooks.

Tiny wires, many hours... These are deceptive in their simplicity for they took a very long time. I found that when wrapping the frames, it was easier for me to make a few wraps, then take my flat nose pliers and do just a quick 'tap' to make sure they stayed flat and tight.

The center stones are Russian Charoite and the color is natural. Can you believe??? I love this rock and have made many wonderful pieces using it.

Click the image to enlarge and get a close look. The tops of the frames are wrapped in a 'cap' style because I felt it gave a nice look and also provides a place to tuck in the back wires neatly.
When building your jewelry, I always like to advise that you give some visualization to how you might 'finish' ends or where you are going to tuck the ends of wire. If you are working from a tutorial, then this becomes less important and you can make note of how the tutorial finishes the ends. But when making pieces of our own design, I sometimes forget to give thought to this because my eyes are so full the bead candy that I didn't normally give much thought to the finish. Over time, I've learned that it's just as important as the focal point. I've been training myself to think of the findings as part of the whole design and it's become much more now then to just 'add a hook'. I've found that I enjoy creating new ways to close up my pieces and I really like challenging myself to find 'neat' ways to tuck away the wire. It adds a stamp of quality to your project and your piece of wire jewelry, when you or your customer can wear it, without feeling the 'scratch' of a loose end!