Using Jewelry Wire to Wrap an Irregular Stone Jewelry Making Technique -- Page 4

Step 9:  We continue making our loop at the top of the stone by using our round nose pliers to make a full loop in the wire at the point of the 90 degree bend.  See the picture at right for how the wire should appear.  If you need to connect your pendant to your chain (because the clasp is too large to fit through the loop in your wire here) this is the point where we connect the chain.  To add the chain, you can open the loop slightly until you are able to position the chain inside the loop.  After you have completed the loop, visually inspect it to make certain that it is centered.  If it isn't centered, use your round nose pliers to twist it left or right as necessary until it is centered. 

Step 10:  To complete the loop at the top of the stone, grasp the loop with your bent chain nose pliers and hold it firmly.  Wrap the wire tail around at least two times.  Cut the excess wire and use a second pair of chain nose pliers to squeeze and twist the wire flat.   When completed the loop should appear as shown at left.  Ultimately, you may need to twist this loop 90 degrees so that the front and back of the stone are properly aligned when it is being worn.  To this, grasp the loop in your bent chain nose pliers and hold the stone in your opposite hand, then twist the pliers to re-orientate the loop. 

Alternatives: 

The process described above is the most simple and direct way to wrap an irregular stone and make a pendant.  There are a couple of modifications to this approach that can make the pendant more professional appearing.  The first alternative is to alternate the longer wire first outside, then inside the 3-4" wire segment on the back of the spiral.  If you look at right, you can see going up from the bottom of the stone that the first loop is wrapped outside and the second loop is wrapped inside.  The second alternative to consider is to wrap the longer wire completely around the 3-4" wire segment.  Again, working up from the bottom you can see that the third loop is first wrapped inside, then wrapped completely around the 3-4" wire segment.  By doing this, the wire wrapped pendant will be much more stable and less likely for the wire to shift during wearing. 

We hope that this approach will be helpful to people with irregular shapes like beach glass, river stones, gemstones and other irregular shapes to turn into pendants.  On the next web page we will discuss alternatives for wire wrapping triangular shapes like the shark's tooth shown at left.