Making a Bead Dangle Jewelry Making Technique -- Page 3

Step 9:   Now, while holding your pliers in your non-dominant hand, use the forefinger on your dominant hand to push the wire to complete the loop.  See the picture at right for how the wire component should appear after you have pushed the wire to complete the loop. 

Step 10:  Remove the wire component from your pliers.  At this point the head pin with bead should appear as shown at left.  Frequently at this point, you will notice that the loop is not centered above the bead.  In those cases, re-insert the loop on one of the jaws of your round nose pliers and slide it down the pliers until the entire loop is touching the pliers.  At that point, you can twist the loop to the left or to the right until the loop is centered above the bead. 

Step 11:  At this point you can choose if you want to make an open loop bead dangle or a wrapped loop bead dangle.  You can view an open loop bead dangle, below-left and a wrapped loop bead dangle below center.  If you choose to make the open loop bead dangle, you would cut the excess wire at the point where it starts to overlap, as shown below-right.  Once you've cut the excess wire, you have essentially completed the open loop bead dangle.  In order to add that dangle to a piece of jewelry, you would use your bent chain nose pliers to twist the loop up, allowing it to be added to the jewelry item.  Once it is in position, then you would twist the loop down to close the open loop.  That would complete the process of making and using an open loop bead dangle. 

Open Loop	Wrapped Loop	Cutting the Excess for an Open Loop

Instructions for making a closed loop bead dangle continue on the following page.