Pearl Bling Ring
Ingredients
0.6mm Silver Plated Wire
A selection of 4 – 6mm sized Freshwater pearls
Additional Tools Required: Wooden Ring Mandrel, Pencil, Side Cutters, Chain Nose Pliers, Crimping Pliers
Method
1. To begin with you will need to draw a pencil line around your wooden ring mandrel to mark the size that you’d like your ring to be. The easiest way to do this is to take a ring that fits you and put this on the ring mandrel, draw a line around the mandrel underneath the ring.
2. Cut off approx 80cm of 0.6mm silver plated wire and place it around the ring mandrel just below the line you have drawn. It’s important to place the wire just below the line as you need to make the ring slightly large as when you wrap it will become smaller.3. Wrap it around the ring mandrel 4-5 times being careful not to cross the wires over or it will not sit flat on your finger.4. Slip the ring off the mandrel5. Wrap one end of the wire around the ring band tightly about three times, you may need to use your chain nose pliers to pull it tight whilst you wrap, cut off any excess wire and flatten down the sharp edge using your crimping pliers. (don’t worry if your ring band gets a little distorted at this stage as you’ll be able to smarten it up again later)
6. Now you are ready to start beading up the ring. To do this you need a selection of beads in various sizes, thread a bead onto the remaining end of wire and bring it down to the ring band, wrap the wire around the ring band to secure the bead, add another bead and continue until the ring is as wide and as jewel encrusted as you’d like it to be. Make sure that you work across from the wrapped side of the ring band towards the other side.
7. Finish by wrapping the remaining end of the wire around the other side of the ring band as in step 5, cut off any excess wire and flatten down any sharp edges using your crimping pliers8. Place the ring back onto the ring mandrel to reshape it – if it is a little small at this stage you can take a rubber or leather backed hammer and hammer it down on the ring mandrel to increase the size of the ring.
