For The Love of Beads BlogThe adventures of Suzanne, Nibbler, and friends in the world of beads and jewelry making crafts

Hello again!
The flu has passed, the last long weekend of the summer is over and I have been playing with lots of wire recently. We got some new stringing supplies in and I got a little sidetracked from my wire-wrapping practice. I did, however, bring the two media together for some interesting and fun projects that I decided would make a good tutorial/inspiration post so, here we go! Now that the kiddies are back to school (or have been for a week or two), you parents should have a bit more time on your hands – why not make a fun colorful necklace for yourself, (or your kids who might need some cheering up now that the summer is over).

These are pretty easy to make and don’t take much time. All you need is some wire and some creativity!

Materials
- leather cord
- wire
-clasp

I started by wrapping some black 24g wire around a piece of green leather that was the right length for a necklace. Then I finished it up by making a loop of leather and wrapping it tight then adding a silver hook to the other end.

You can leave as much space as you want between each coil of wire, whatever looks good to you. Or you can cross the wire over each other by wrapping it from one end and then the other, making sure to keep the spacing equal as I did on this treble clef pendant:

To complete my necklace, I made a couple of different pendants by wrapping the same leather in wire and molding it into shapes (as seen above and below). The wire around the leather makes it hold its shape quite well and it has a fun, chunky and colorful look! To make it even more customizable, I attached a clasp to the front of the necklace so that I can easily swap the pendants. (This is a great trick for any necklace you want to be able to customize on the spot.)

Here are a couple other pieces I made while playing around:

The first one is a braid of leather pieces, one of which has been wrapped in red wire. This necklace holds its shape really well and is actually a little bit stiff.  The second one was a bit harder as the leather keeps wanting to move closer to each other but once you get the hang of bending the wire in even sections around the leather, it goes pretty quickly.

As you can see, there are lots of possibilities when working with wire, and there are lots of things you can combine it with! Its easy to form the shapes once the leather is wrapped, just don’t forget to hammer it lightly under a towel once you have it the way you want it, this will keep it from being easily pulled out of shape.

I hope you enjoy playing with leather and wire as much as I did!

Happy crafting.