Make-It Monday: Simple Beaded Earrings Tutorial

Well, as you may have heard about in Saturday's post, I'm not really able to hobble around in the kitchen making food and taking pictures of it. So this was the perfect opportunity to finally do a jewelry tutorial post for you guys--since it can be done sitting down. ;) (You know, leg wrapped up, propped up, with ice on it all the while...)

A regular customer of mine recently requested a simple, silver and cobalt beaded necklace. Here's what I came up with:

And she loved it. :) But she also wanted some very simple clip-on earrings to match, with just one dangling bead. So I wanted to show you guys how to make these simple earrings.

It really is easy, and gets even easier the more you do it--the hardest part was definitely attempting to get good pictures of what I was doing. I tried, y'all!

You'll need:

Notes:

• My pliers are 3-in-1: round-nose, "flat-nose," and a wire cutter farther in. (Can you see those?) So if you just have round-nose pliers, you can use nail clippers to cut the wire instead. (This resource will tell you everything you need to know about pliers.)
• This tutorial works for any kind of earring hooks.
• You can get any of these supplies at any craft store or on Etsy.

How to do it:

1- Thread a headpin through one of the beads and trim it to about 3/8" sticking out of the bead.

2- Do the same with the other headpin and bead, and eye-ball them to make sure they're the same length.

3 -5 - Grasp the end of the headpin with your pliers and bend the wire into a curve away from you--you'll want to do this bending motion while pushing back against the wire toward yourself, if that makes sense, so that you get a prettier c-shaped loop as opposed to an ugly cane-shaped loop.

6 - Slip the headpin loop through the loop in whatever type of earring hooks you're using--you may need to gently re-open the headpin loop a little bit to give it room first.

7 - Once the loop is through the earring back's hole, insert the pliers into the loop like you did when you made the loop and begin to close it.

8- Finish closing the loop by very gently clamping it shut with either flat-nose or round-nose pliers (flat works better for this, but either works).

All done!

You can stack even more beads onto each headpin for a bolder look too. The possibilities are really endless with the colors and combinations you can make. And if you're still trying to figure out what to get Mom for Mother's Day, here's an idea! Make her a couple pairs of earrings! Or you can always browse the earrings section in my Etsy shop. ;)

Don't forget there's still a couple days left to enter my giveaway!

P.S. Linking up with Funday Monday, Time to Sparkle, Do Tell Tuesday, Show Me What Ya Got, Share Your Stuff Tuesday,

Share It Link Party, Wake Up Wednesday, Wildly Original Link Party, Whatever Goes Wednesday, Mother's Day Categorically Crafting Party, All Things Thursday, and Handmade Cafe.