Flemish Spiral Jewelry Wire & Beads Earrings Jewelry Making Projects -- Page 4

Step 17:   Finish wrapping the piece by squeezing the overlapping 1/16" of 1/2 round wire flat against the wire component using your bent chain nose pliers as shown at right.  After you have squeezed that wire flat, then use your bent chain nose pliers to close the beginning and ending loops.   

Step 18:  The finished, wrapped Flemish Spiral wire component should appear as shown at right on one side and as shown at left on the opposite side.  When using the component in earrings, the side shown at left should be orientated to face out as it is the better looking of the two sides. 

Step 19:  After you have completed two large, two medium and two small Flemish Spiral wire components, you will be ready to begin assembling the earrings.  The first step in getting ready to assemble the earrings is to make 12 figure 8 connectors.  You can make these connectors out of 18 or 20 gauge half-hard or soft wire.  For the earrings shown here we used 20 gauge wire.  The steps involved in making a figure 8 connector can be viewed here. 

Step 20:  The largest Flemish Spiral wire component is connected to the middle sized Flemish Spiral wire component by three figure 8 connectors.  Use your bent chain nose pliers to open and close the loops on the figure 8 connector, connecting one figure 8 connector at a time.  On the third figure 8 connector, you will need to open the final loop a little wider than normal in order to be able to connect that figure 8 connector between the largest and medium sized Flemish Spiral wire components. 

Step 21:  Follow the same process as in step 20 to use three figure 8 connectors to connect the bottom of the middle sized Flemish Spiral wire component to the top of the smallest Flemish Spiral wire component. 

Step 22:  If you used 18 gauge wire for the largest Flemish Spiral Wire component, you can directly connect your commercial ear wire finding to the top of that wire component.  If you used 16 gauge wire for the largest Flemish Spiral wire component you will need to make a modified figure 8 connector as described here to connect your ear wire finding to the body of the earring.  Use 18 or 20 gauge wire to make the modified figure 8 connector (20 gauge is preferred if you have it.)

These instructions continue on the next page.