New Jewelry A Day: Make Earrings from Grommets

Friday, December 17, 2010

Make Earrings from Grommets

Before: Washers from Grommet

Yesterday, we made a bracelet from brass grommets. The bracelet was so much fun to wear that we decided to make earrings using some of the still remaining grommet parts.

We used the large brass ring as the focal point to create dramatic earrings that swing as you wear them. We used the same style ear wire finding that we used in our earrings made from steel wire because we wanted the shape of the ear wire to echo the shape of the grommet. Same finding. Really different look.

Materials
Brass grommets
20-gauge round brass wire

After: Earrings by GeltDesigns

Tools
Nylon jaw plier
Wire rounder
Round nose pliers or wire looping pliers
Flush cutter or a side cutter
Three step wire looping pliers or mandrel
Steel bench block
Rawhide or plastic mallet

Step 1
Check the two grommets to be sure there are no sharp edges. Use 220-grit wet/dry sandpaper to sand away any sharp edges, if needed.

Step 2
Make the chain. We used 20-gauge brass wire and then made "S" links using the tip of our pliers because we wanted to create a very fine chain. In the last link of the chain, we made one very small loop and one very large loop so we could attach the chain to the grommet.

Step 3

Make the ear wires. Use nylon jaw pliers to smooth out and harden the wire. Make a small loop at the end of the 20-gauge wire. Wrap the round wire around a mandrel. For these earrings we used an orange block we "borrowed" from the toy box. Cut the wire with flush cutters after you wrapped the wire completely around the