I’m very excited to share this one with you all because it’s my first design that I’ve done in almost a decade! It’s been a couple of months now, since I took up jewellery making as a hobby, again. I’ve been working almost exclusively with wire wrapping (although this week, I finally took up the torch again, so look out for that project when I’ve completed it!). I’ve mostly been working my way through “Wire Jewelry Masterclass“, which I must say is a brilliant book to learn from – I’ve now completed 4 projects from the book, not including all the links and findings that I’ve been making. I’ve also been watching a lot of videos and trying out various techniques and tutorials. So, I decided to try and make up my own design. And here it is – a blog post about how to make a heart pendant, using wire wrapping techniques!
By no stretch of the imagination is it perfect – the heart it wonky… the wire is kinked… but it was a really great learning experience! And I’m pretty pleased that it’s a close match to my original sketch:
So, let’s launch into how I made my heart pendant! And in case you prefer visual learning, I’ve also done a video of my making process (just be warned, it’s not a full tutorial… as I was pretty much making it up as I went along, but you’ll get the idea!)
Tools
- Round-nose Pliers
- Chain-nose Pliers
- Flat-nose Pliers
- Nylon-jaw Pliers
- Wire Cutters
- Ruler / Tape Measure
Materials
Orbital Pendant
- 2x 15cm of 1mm (18g) copper wire
- 76cm of 0.3mm (28g) copper wire
- 1x 14mm drilled bead (I used turquoise)
Outer Heart Frame
- 2x 25cm of 1mm (18g) copper wire
- 3m of 0.3mm (28g) copper wire (This is for the frame weaving)
- 1.7m of 0.3mm (28g) copper wire (This is for the bail)
Inner Heart Frame
- 15cm of 1mm (18g) copper wire
- 2m of 0.3mm (28g) copper wire
Instructions
1. Make the Orbital Pendant
I made the Orbital Pendant following all the instructions from “Wire Jewelry Masterclass” by Abby Hook (I’m not affiliated in anyway! I just happened to have a copy given to me. And have been working through the book to learn wire wrapping!). I wrote a blog post on how I went about it, and where I struggled a few weeks ago “A Mothers’ Day Project“, so do check it out if you want a few hints and tips. You should end up with something like this (don’t secure the bead in yet!):
2. Make the Outer Heart Frame
I decided to make the outer heart frame in a very similar way to the Orbital Pendant. So, I cut two 25cm lengths of 1mm (18g) copper wire, and straightened it. Using some masking tape, I stuck the two pieces of wire together, with a small (3-5mm) gap between them. Then, I took the 3m length of 0.3mm (28g) copper wire and attached to the frame securely.
The weave pattern is to loop once around the top wire, then to do a “figure of 8” over the top wire and under the bottom wire, then to loop once over the bottom wire. Repeat until you’ve made length of 15cm. You may want to make your heart smaller, to avoid some of the problems I had later on! Play about with the look until you’re happy with the design!
3. Shape the Outer Heart Frame
To shape the outer heart frame, I measured halfway along the wrapped wires (7.5cm), and taking the Flat-nose Pliers, I made a 90 degree bend, slightly to the right of the halfway mark. I then formed the tops of the heart by eye, using my drawing as a guide – check that your bead fits inside. Also, make sure that the four wires at the top of the heart cross over – you’ll need this, so that you can secure the bead and its frame to the heart! When you’re happy with the shape of your heart, then bend the two inner wires, up by 90 degrees.
4. Fitting and Securing the Stone Frame
The next part is pretty fiddly, but you’re trying to fit the bead frame inside the heart frame and get it to stay there! Start by positioning it in the right place.
Cut 1.7m of 0.3mm (28g) copper wire and secure it to the top of the heart frame by wrapping the wire over one of the heart wires 3-4 times, leaving a tail of 20cm so that you have enough to thread and secure the bead on later. (You’ll see from the video that I did this by trial and error)
5. Weaving the Bail
The bail now has four wires that need to be woven in and secured. This is more wires than I’ve ever had to deal with before!
After more trial and error, I settle on a simple over and under weave. So, if you imagine four wires laying horizontally in front of you, with your weaving wire secured to the first (top) wire, then you’re going to go under the second wire, over the third and under the fourth (bottom) wire. Wrap the weaving wire once around the fourth (bottom) wire. Then, go back the other way! So, you need to go under the third wire, over the second wire and under the first (top) wire. Then wrap once around the first (top) wire. You’re aiming for something that looks like this (photo on the left!).
I made mine 2.5cm long – you might need less / more depending on the thickness of your chain. I probably could have done with a few extra mm to make it easier to fit my chain, which was made from figure of 8 links using 1mm (18g) wire.
Once you’re happy with the length, cut and secure the wire end.
6. Trim the Bail Wires & Shape
To make sure the weaving didn’t fall off the end of the wires while I was working on the rest of the pendant (because let’s face it, I’m pretty clumsy and it could happen!), I trimmed the ends of the 4 bail wires to 5mm, and then curled in loops. So it looks like this:
7. Sort Out the Remaining Structure Wires
There are still four wires that remain from the two frames, and I must admit when I was planning out my design, it didn’t occur to me that I’d have this many wires leftover. In the original Orbital Pendant design, there are only two wires left and they’re curled to make decorative spirals on top of the bead. Not having any experience to do anything else, I opted to turn all four wires into spirals and then positioned them at the top of the wire.
If you’re going to do the same, then trim the four remaining wires to 3cm each, ready for later.
8. Attach the Bead
The next thing to do is attach and secure the bead inside the round frame. The technique is exactly the same as for the Orbital Pendant, and I describe how I did this on this blog post.
You should end up with something like this!
9. Form the Decorative Spirals
For each of the four remaining structure wires, use your Round-nose Pliers to form an initial loop. Then switch to Flat-nose or Chain-nose Pliers to curl the wire in – I’ve found the spiral is tighter and flatter!
10. Form the Bail
Bend the bail over the top of your Round-nose Pliers and get it as close to touching the pendant as possible. Using the Chain-nose Pliers, bend the bottom of the bail slightly away and upwards from the pendant (like a flick!).
When you’re happy with the shape, secure it with 0.3mm (28g) wire to the pendant.
Hopefully, you’ve got something that looks like this (but neater… and more even…)!
And this is where I planned to stop. But the more I looked at it, the more I felt like something was missing. It seemed awfully empty to me. It probably would have been fine, if I’d made the heart smaller (bit late for that now). I sat on it for 2 days, trying to decide what to do with it. In the end, I decided to add an extra piece to the middle, based on a tutorial I’d seen the previous week (and had really wanted to try out, so honestly, that was the deciding factor in the end…). So bear with me, for the final couple of steps!
11. Make the Inner Heart Frame
Cut 15cm of 1mm (18g) copper wire and straighten. Find the halfway point and make a 90 degree bend. Taking a ring mandrel (or anything round and the right size for your pendant), form the top curves of the heart. I used a ring mandrel this time, because I wanted to try and get this heart much more even (for reference, I curved my heart over the E size on my ring mandrel). As you’re making this heart, don’t forget to check that it fits into the outer heart frame!
Once you’re happy with the shape, cut both wire ends down to 3cm length.
Take your Round-nose Pliers and curve one of the wire ends into a loose spiral. Repeat on the other side (and try to make them look the same!!!)
It should all fit together nicely!
12. Secure the Inner Heart Frame to the Pendant
Cut a 2m length of 0.3mm (28g) copper wire – this is going to be used to weave the inner heart frame to the pendant.
Measure halfway along the weaving wire and secure the weaving wire at its centre to the base of the outer frame, by wrapping it 3-4 times. Fit the inner frame to the pendant, and start wrapping the right hand side to secure. Then do the left hand side. You want to wrap both frames together until you get to the point where the frames start to diverge away from each other. (I did try weaving sooner, but just couldn’t get the wire in the gap!)
13. Weave in the Frame
Next comes the weaving. This is a bit tricky to explain, but I’ll do my best. The basic concept is very similar to making the frame for the Orbital Pendant, but you eventually have to take into account that the outer frame curves more gradually than the inner frame.
The first part of the weave is the same as for the Orbital Pendant. Wrap the wire once around the inner frame wire, then make a figure of 8, ending on the outer frame wire, then wrap the wire once around the outer frame wire. Repeat this on both sides, until you get to the start of the curving for the top of the heart. (See the photo on the right)
At this point, the pattern changes slightly, so that the curving on the bigger heart is taken into account. The figure of 8 remains the same. However, to fill the gap for the top part of the heart, I did the following:
- 2 wraps on the inner heart, figure of 8, 3 wraps on the outer heart
- 2 wraps on the inner heart, figure of 8, 4 wraps on the outer heart
- 2 wraps on the inner heart, figure of 8, 5 wraps on the outer heart
- 2 wraps on the inner heart, figure of 8, 4 wraps on the outer heart
- 2 wraps on the inner heart, figure of 8, 3 wraps on the outer heart
- 2 wraps on the inner heart, figure of 8, 2 wraps on the outer heart
- 2 wraps on the outer heart, figure of 8, 2 wraps on the outer heart.
Repeat on the other side of the heart. Secure the wires and trim. This was the final outcome:
You can see the kinks, the unevenness, the spirals pointing the wrong way… but you know what? I’m reasonably pleased with myself! It looks pretty close to the sketch, and I learnt to adapt along the way.
Making Findings
I also made a chain and a hook clasp (again, following instructions from “Wire Jewelry Masterclass”). The chain was quite chunky (I had a particular friend in mind when I made this, as I wanted to give it to her for her birthday!) – I can highly recommend making chains if you want to practice getting things the same shape and size consistently! Obviously, it’s probably not very cost efficient, if you’re trying to make a living out of this!
Just in case you’re wondering, this project took me a total of 10.5 hours (or thereabouts) – about 4 hours to make the initial pendant, plus 2 hours to add the additional spiral heart and weave. The chain took me 4 hours (I was homeschooling my daughter at the time, and needed to keep my hands busy). The clasp took about 20 minutes or so.
Do let me know what you think in the comments! Until next time! And don’t forget to subscribe if you’d like to keep up-to-date with my latest makes and projects!
[…] it depends on how thick a band you want! Weave the ring band – instructions can be found here. To make a Size O ring, my weaving measured […]