Making Love Letter Bead Earrings with Wire

 Using letter beads, what I used to call 'baby beads' are a great way to make personalized unique jewelry that express your true feelings. Or they could just be a way to make jewelry that amuses you.

One thing that makes using letter beads in jewelry challenging is that the beads have a horizontal drill hole. That makes them work best for bracelets (or for people who like to read sideways).

I decided to take the challenge and figure out a way to use letter beads for earrings that are not sideways. 

Before I jump into the project, I mentioned that I call these 'baby beads'. I'm sure that's a generational thing and I'm probably one of the youngest people that would call them that. It made me curious why I call them that though, because I've never seen a baby bracelet with these beads. So, I went searching on the internet and found this 2 minute video that shows what a baby bracelet looks like in the 1950's. I think  it's pretty cool and much better than the ugly bracelets that we put on babies born in the hospital today. Made me wonder what they did if they ran out of a letter. Anyway - back to my letter bead earring project.

These are the supplies for this project:

Resin rose flower beads

Round letter beads

24 gauge ParaWire

2 hook earring wires

6 step pliers

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Cut a piece of wire about 10 inches long to wrap 4-5 letters. Add more wire if your sentiment has more letters. 

Fold the wire in half and add the last letter, in this case the 'E', to the wire. 

You are going to be turning the letter 180 degrees, so put the bead on the wire with the letter upside down, and turn the letter wrapping the wire around the bottom of the letter.

Put the other end of the wire though the bead.

Pull the ends of the wire tight and your project will look like the picture above.

If it is confusing adding the bead upside down and turning it over while on the wire, you can bend one side of the wire so it is going horizontal above the last bead.

Then add the next letter bead to the wire, and put the second piece of wire through the bead hole.

Pull tight to secure the bead. Repeat these steps for the rest of the letter beads.

When all of the letters are in place, bring the wires together centered over the first letter. 

Hold both wires together and treat them as a single wire in order to make a wrapped loop in the wire.

 

Trim the wires to complete the dangle. 

Attach the resin rose flower bead using a piece of 20 gauge wire. Make a simple loop, add the bead and then make another simple loop on the other side.

Twist open the loops to attach the word pendant and the earring hook. Repeat to make other words. 

I like to use my chain nose pliers to round the wire on the sides of each letter.