Wire Wrapped Cabinet Pull

I am slowly remodeling the studio bathroom, on a budget of course. And the cabinet handle that was there was pretty ugly. Pained several times and the paint was chipping. So I set out to find the perfect cabinet pull that was fun and colorful. Being my picky self I couldn't settle on one that I liked both in looks and price so instead of going out and buying one I decided to make the existing one pretty. Now I could of easily just spray painted it and bam it would have been done in under 2 minutes. But I wanted something unique so I set out to wire wrap the handle in some pretty green beads! It was incredibly easy! I first sanded down the handle (more like my husband did it for me) and then I started wrapping! I thought it would go with the purple bathroom. Not to mention this project cost me nothing since I already had all the materials on hand. (the color is "grape juice" by Valspar)

How to Make Antlers!



So I have been looking at how to make me some nice deer antlers for a while, and honestly I couldn't find a single post anywhere on a SIMPLE & EASY way to make some antlers that didn't involve
 a) branches b) clay c) real antlers d) paper mache e) require me to go out and buy materials
I know cheap and laziness isn't a good combo, but as they say "necessity is the mother of all invention" and combined with my cheapness and laziness I came up with a super simple & easy way to make some antlers. Now you may be wondering "why?". No it's not for Halloween, although I am tempted to wear them for Halloween. But they are a prop for one of the dances the folkloric dance team is working on. I had seen the real prop that is supposed to go with this dance but they wanted $450!! Um....how about no. So for now (until I become a billionaire) this will be perfect! And plus did I mention my version was FREE! So without anymore babbling here is how I made them.

Materials:

• aluminum foil
• painters tap/scotch tape/any paint able tape
• wire (not too thin but not too thick either, I got mine at my local hardware store and it was the only size they had and it worked great)
• wire cutters
• needle nosed pliers
• leather like fabric/ or any fabric you would like cut into about half inch strips
• paint & paint brush & paper plate for your paint
• metal headband
• hot glue gun & hot glue

How To:

• First map out what you want your antlers to look like and about how big you want them.
• Then, with your aluminum foil roll it length wise and start making the shapes. I did each point separate and then just hot glued them together where I wanted them
• Once all the pieces are hot glued together where you want them it should look like this...

 

• After you have your antlers how you like them it is time to start taping! so get your tape out and make sure that every inch of your antlers are taped. (you can see I had tried to wrap one of the antlers in contact paper.....it didn't turn out so well, I had to take it off and wrap it with tape instead)

• Once you are done taping them they should look like this!  

• Now comes the paint! so start painting your antlers the way you want them.

•  It took about 2 coats of the light ivory paint for it to cover all traces of the blue tape. Then I added browns and darker ivories to them.

 

• Now set your antlers to the side and wait for them to completely dry.
• After they are completely dry take about a 12 inch length of your wire (sorry I forgot to take pictures of the rest of the steps) and push it through the bottom of your antler so you have an even amount of wire on both sides of the antler.
• Now place the antler with the wire sticking through it on top of your metal headband (positioning isn't crucial when it comes to whether to move it left or right, because you will still be able to slide it to the sides while it's on the headband for now)
• Now wrap the wire that is sticking out of the antler around the headband until it is totally secure and the antler doesn't flop forward or backward. (I had to play with wrapping and unwrapping it until I liked the rigidity of the antler)
• Once you are done wrapping the wire around the antler and the headband start on the second antler.
• Now that you have both of your antlers wire wrapped to the headband slide the antlers around on the headband until you like their position.
• Now take your strips of fabric and start wrapping it around the headband making sure you hot glue as you go and to cover as much of the wire at the antlers as possible.
• Once you are finished wrapping the headband in fabric you can leave it like that and you are finished!

OR If you want to be able to tie it around your head

•  just cut your fabric to your desired length (I had cut my strips super long, eh about a yard, because I needed them to be super secure on the dancer's head) and hot glue the strips onto the ends of the headband and voila! You now have an awesome antler headpiece that cost you next to nothing! (it was totally free for me to make this, I already had everything I needed on hand!)

 

 

 

Aquamarine...

I LOVE aquamarine, it's so pretty, it reminds me of the ocean. So when I went to the Rockhounds Pow Wow last week I decided to buy a piece of aquamarine. And with that little piece I thought it would be perfect on a ring. I LOVE it. I almost, almost want to keep it for myself...maybe.

Stone Pendant

Yup, you guessed it, this is one of those pretty stones I bought last week!

Just a Seashell

I have been super excited of all the wonderful rocks that i've bought the other day at the Rockhound's Pow Wow and so i've been busy at work trying to invision the identities of these beauties. So far here is one of the shells that i've wire wrapped :)

Purple Wire Wrapped Stone Pendant

Lately I've been playing around with wire wrapping stones. And I've got to say I love doing it!

Wire Wrapped Crystal

This was my first time wire wrapping anything that didn't have a pre-drilled hole in it!! I love it!! I did this for a friend of mine and this beauty is destined to be a pendant on a necklace!!

Adjustable Ring

I decided to go ahead and make an adjustable ring! I kinda really like it!

Earrings...

Some more Jewelry...

I had some down time while I was out at the store the other day and made these pretties!

Found Identity

I had made this jump ring bracelet a while ago just could never envision it finished, well I think I found out it's identity...

Golden Wire and a Rock....

This is what happens when the two combine! I kinda love it!

Simple Dangley Earring Tutorial

Ok, so this is my first earring tutorial, so please bear with me :)

Materials:

1. anvil (or hard metal surface)
2. hammer
3. a marker or a thicker thing to wrap your wire around
4. a pencil or a smaller sized object to wrap wire around
5. pliers
6. needle nosed pliers
7. side cutting pliers
8. wire jig
9. 20 gauge wire
10. beads
11. saftey glasses!
12. optional not pictured (store bought fish eye hooks)

why did I choose 20 gauge? well i've noticed that anything smaller is too flimsy when making the fish eye hooks and anything bigger is just too thick. If you are using store bought fish eye hooks you can skip to the part where you make your jump rings. REMEMBER TO WEAR YOUR SAFTEY GLASSES!!!

take your needle nose pliers and your wire and make a loop

so it looks like this

then take your wire jig and make a fish eye hook shape (this will take some playing around with I used one of my existing earrings as a template for the hook, OR you can use the store bought hooks you can find at any craft store)

now that you have your shape use your side cutters to cut the wire

now that you have your fish eye hook use your hammer and anvil to lightly hammer the hook to stiffen it's shape

now that you have one hook, repeat to make a second one!

now to make a jump ring, use your pencil to wrap your wire around to make two rings, use your wire cutters to cut them, now open them up enough so you can stick beads onto the wire

after you have your beads on the wire close up the gap using your needle nosed pliers

now thread a bead onto your wire like this

now make a loop at the end of the wire with your needle nosed pliers

now cut like 3/4 or 1/2 an inch and make another loop with your needle nosed pliers

now using your needle nosed pliers open up both of the loops you just made and attach the bead onto the hook you made and on the other attach it to the wire cirlcle with beads

now using your marker wrap your wire around it to make two rings and again lightly hammer them to strengthen their shape. Now open the circles up a little, enough to put it through the eye at the bottom of the bead. Close the circles up. And you're done!  

Earrings!

I've been in the mood to make some earrings....

the ones above are my favorite so far! I was feeling the color blue and feeling the dangley kind of earring today!

Wire Wrapped Bangle Tutorial!

I've gotten a couple people asking me "how did you make that?!" so today I wanted to show you and try to explain to you how I do it! so here we go!

Materials:

1. Hammer (doesn't have to be a pink one)
2. side cutting pliers
3. needle nose pliers
4. anvil (or any hard metal surface)
5. heavy gauge wire (I just grabbed the heaviest the craft store had, I think it's 16 or 18 gauge not sure)
6. thin gauge wire (I used 28 gauge wire)
7. measuring tape
8. binder clip
9. glass beads
10. some more beads!

first measure your wrist

now take that measurement and cut two pieces of the heavy gauge wire 

now bend them into a "U" shape making sure they are both similar in shape

now take the needle nose pliers and curl the ends in to make a loop, do that for both ends on both pieces of wire

now lightly hammer the ends

they are slightly flat, not pancake flat

now put both of the pieces together with the loops facing away from each other

this is where I used the binder clip to hold the two wires together in the position I wanted while I wrapped

now while you have the binder clip giving you a hand, start wrapping the thinner gauge wire on the side that you have the binder clip on. I personally used about 10 inches of the thing wire to wrap the two heavier gauge wires together.

now I lightly hammered the place where I wrapped the wire around just to give it a more flat look and feel. Do this for the other side.

now you can take as long or as short of wire (thin gauge) and string your bead and just start wrapping it onto your bangle form that you have already made

it should look something like this

you can have fun with it and string two beads at once or use different sized beads, just have fun with it!

and you're done! after you put all the bigger beads on there you can decide to "fill in the gaps" with smaller beads or just leave it how it is!

the colors remind me of the sea and the ends how they curl outward remind me of a mermaids tail :)

I hope this was somewhat easy to follow!