Comma Jewelry Wire Earrings -- Jewelry Making Project -- Page 5

Design Alternatives: 

The first alternative to consider is making the same style earrings but in a slightly different size.  See the earrings at right.  The earring far-right was made using the pattern we described previously.  The earring near-right was made using the pattern shown below-left.  That earrings uses 4 1/4 inches of 20 gauge wire and a 7/16" Super Peg.  For this smaller earring you could use the same 4mm or 6mm beads hanging from the loop in the earring.  The difference in the pattern for these two ear wires is small. The pattern for the smaller ear wire is 1 inch from top to bottom.  The pattern for the larger ear wire is 1.2 inches from top to bottom.  If you really like delicate designs, you could make these same earrings using a 3/8 " Super Peg and move all the pegs in one more hole closer to the center. 

  Another design alternative to consider is to consider different sized beads.  These earrings could be made with 4mm beads as we described, with 6mm beads as we briefly mentioned and perhaps with 8mm beads.  A combination of seed or bugle beads and 4mm beads could also be used. 

This option is a radical departure from the rounded ear wires shown above to an angular ear wire.  Please see the ear wire at right for an angular design alternative to the Comma Jewelry Wire Earrings.  The pattern for making this earring is shown at left.  These angular ear wires are rather easy to make.  They may look like they would be hard to put on, but remember what we discussed in the first page of these instructions regarding Suzanne having to eat her words.  These earrings are easy to put on and actually stay on better than more rounded ear wires.  Making these ear wires requires 20 gauge wire, but for this earring 1/2 hard wire will work better than soft wire if it is available.  Use about 4 1/2 inches of wire for each ear wire you make.

This ear wire is a good ear wire to use for Interchangeable beads.  You can view the picture at right and see that we added a bead dangle after the ear wire was completed.  That bead dangle could be easily removed and replaced with another bead dangle in a different color/style. 

On the following web pages we will address several other alternative configurations.