Woven Wire Pendant
Prom season is fast approaching, and while I attended mine last year, my best friend who's still a senior will be attending her own in about a month. I wanted to do something special for her so just like I made my own bracelet for prom, I'm making her a custom necklace. After sporadic bouts of surfing pinterest.com, I compiled a few ideas to create the unique design shown here (trust me; this picture doesn't do the actual pendant justice.. for one, the color is rosier rather than golden) that I'll customize to match her dress in time for the big night.
Hopefully no one reading this tutorial a) attends the same school and b) has mad wire weaving skills like yours truly. BUT if you are another girl wanting to make your own jewelry for your own big night, read on!
Materials
- wire (I used 20 and 28 gauge rose-gold colored wire)
- pliers
- beads
- chain
You do need a fair amount of experience with wire weaving (unless you're a natural wire weaver..) in order to handle the weaving that goes on in this pendant. Weaving wire and looping it was hard for me, so just a word of warning not to be upset if any part seems too difficult!
Another note: you have free rein over what weaves you choose to use in order to weave the wires together, so do whatever is easiest for you or that you feel confident in doing! To be honest, I just winged what weaving I was doing; whenever I felt like changing the pattern, I just did. Simple as that.
Central Loop
You'll need three pieces of base wire (thick wire that you'll be wrapping around) that are 12 inches long. To be honest, I used 15 inches which was overkill, but that's because someone wise once taught me that it's better to have a long length of excess that short bits that you can't use...
Just check out the pictures above for step-by-step instructions.
Base Wire Weaving
Weave the base wires like a net as shown above.
Side Weaving
Again, check the pictures and their notes above for step-by-step instructions.
Swirls
To finish up my loose ends, I came up with something on the spot (I actually had no plan for this haha; just randomly bent the wires and liked what I saw..).
Again, check the pictures and their notes above for step-by-step instructions.
Mirrored Sides
Repeat the weaving process for the left side of the pendant. Make sure that you have your loops lying correctly so that it's a true mirror image (this part on top of this part, etc...)!
Finishing Touches
Now you're free to bedazzle the pendant however you'd like; add beads to your heart's content, weave in more wire if you'd like, and add chain to complete the necklace.
I hope you enjoyed the instructable, and have fun!