Desert Rain Wire Earrings (Tutorial)
by Rena Klingenberg. © 2003-Present Rena Klingenberg. All Rights Reserved
These earrings were inspired by the American Southwest, where you can sometimes see small isolated rainstorms on the horizon, dampening the desert with a few drops of rain.
This is an easy wire project because it’s mostly free-form. The wire “rain” can even be made from scrap wire.
Supplies:
- A pair of earwires.
I made these earwires from my Easy Fancy Earwires Tutorial:
- Size 6/0 seed beads – 1 bead for each wire “rain” dangle, in colors that look like water.
I picked these translucent, iridescent turquoise beads out of a seed bead mix I bought years ago:
- 2 large jump rings (mine are 12mm size):
- Round soft or half-hard wire, 20-gauge – for your wire “rain” dangles.
- Round nose pliers.
- Chain nose & flat nose pliers – to open and close the jump rings.
- Sharpie pen for marking your pliers.
How to Make
Desert Rain Wire Earrings:
Let’s start by cutting the wire sticks for the rain that will dangle down from your jump rings.
For each earring, I used 5 wire sticks (for a total of 10 sticks for the pair of earrings). You may want to use more sticks for your earrings.
The longest stick I used for each earring is 2.5″ (64mm) long. I didn’t measure the rest – I just cut each a bit shorter than the last one:
Now let’s mark your round nose pliers with a Sharpie pen, so you can make the top loop of each stick the same size:
You can easily remove the Sharpie ink from your pliers later, using a few drops of rubbing alcohol on a scrap of paper towel.
Now we’ll start with our 5 straight wire sticks for each earring, and turn them into wavy streams of rain with a bead at the bottom of each.
Find your longest wire stick for the first earring.
Grasp the tip of this wire stick with your round nose pliers. The wire end should be on the Sharpie mark you made on your pliers:
Now roll that wire end into a loop:
Now we’ll center that loop over the rest of the wire stick.
Use the tips of your round nose pliers to grasp your loop as shown below, and bend the neck of the wire loop gently until the loop is centered over your wire stick like a lollipop:
Now your wire should look like this:
Now we’ll start doing some fun freeform bending of the wire to give it a wavy, watery look.
Below the loop you just made in the wire, use your round nose pliers to make a freeform bend in the wire:
Now your wire might look something like this:
Keep bending your wire in random, freeform waves:
. . . until you have a straight end that’s just long enough for one of your beads and a small wire loop at the end:
String a bead at the bottom of your wire stick:
And use the very tips of your round nose pliers to make a tiny loop at the end of the wire, below your bead:
You don’t need to center this bottom loop like a lollipop; after making this tiny loop you’re done with this wire stick!
Now finish the remaining wire sticks – starting with a lollipop loop at the top, then random wavy wire below that, then a bead added to the bottom, and ending with a tiny loop.
Each wire stick can have its own unique wavy pattern.
Here are my 10 finished sticks of rain for my pair of earrings; I like making each one unique:
When all of your wire sticks of rain are finished, it’s time to string them onto your jump rings.
So use your flat nose and chain nose pliers to twist open your jump rings:
Now let’s assemble one earring at a time.
String your longest stick for this earring onto the jump ring:
String the second-longest stick next to it:
String the third-longest stick on the other side of the longest stick:
String the fourth-longest stick on the other side of the second-longest stick:
And string the shortest stick on the other side of the third-longest stick:
Now string your earwire onto the jump ring:
Then use your flat nose and chain nose pliers to twist the jump ring shut.
And your finished earring should look something like this:
Assemble the second earring, and your finished earrings may look something like this:
