What’s a Sun Charm? A little something that’s more than a sun catcher, but not quite a wind chime. I was in the mood to do some fusing and also use up a bunch of my jewelry making stash, so here we go!
Materials:
Fused Bottle Glass Fish
Jump Rings
Split Rings
Beading Wire
Silver and light blue bugle beads
Blue mix beads
Large blue accent beads
Eye pins
Crimp Beads
Memory Bracelet Wire
Pliers and cutters
Flat bottle glass sheets
Nichrome wire loops (22 or 24 gauge are fine)
This project has 3 distinct parts, this tutorial shows these parts with fish and a fish themed final project, but it will work equally well with flowers and green beads, stars and silver beads, etc.
Part One – The Fused Elements
Step 1: Bottle Glass Fish
These little guys are pretty cute, and I would make a bunch just to keep in hand, they work well in wind chimes and sun catchers too.
- Fish Pattern
Part 1 – Make The Fish
We are using 3 different colors of blue bottles to make small fish with moveable tails. This involves cutting 4 pieces of glass per fish, adding nichrome loops and firing to a full fuse. Assemble the bodies and tails after fusing, I did mine with matching tails, but you can mix them up.
Trace Fish
cut two of each piece from flat bottle glass
Cut Fish
Pair up the fish pieces. Each pair needs to be from the same bottle
Glue on Nichrome Loops
Add glue for the nichrome loops
Nichrome Loops
Each fish has 3 loops
Assemble Fish Layers
Add top layer of glass and fire to full fuse
Finished Fish
Finished Fishes ready for the next step
Twist jump rings closed to finish
Close Jump Ring
Twist jump ring closed to finish
Part 2 – Assemble the spring
This part of the project utilizes all of those random bits of jewelry supplies that are hanging around. Alternately, if you have any memory wire bracelets bead bracelets left from that beaded bracelet frenzy, you could use those.
The idea here is we are going to load the bracelet memory wire with beads so it’s heavy enough to create a spiral shape around our fish, like a water current. You can easily translate this same idea to other shapes with different colors and themes. I have a flower/dizzy bee version going right now, it’s easy to switch up.
memorywire
Cut a piece of wire about 4 or 5 complete circles. You can always shorten it later.
startloop
Make a loop at the end of the wire
loopatstart
Bend a right angle away from the wire curve
mixedbeadsonwire
Fill the wire with blue bead mix.
finishend
Finish end by creating another loop
Part 3 – Assemble the Fish Cascade
For this bit, we’re adding bead wire to each fish, in varying lengths, and adding bugle beads to the wires to mimic sleek water.
Assemble Fish
Twist open jump rings and connect heads and tails
Finished Fish
Finished Fishes ready for the next step
Cut Beading Wire
Cut beading wire into listed lengths
Thread Fish on Wire
Thread the bead wire through the top of the fish
Crimp Bead
Use a crimp bead to securely attach the wire
Finish Wire Ends
Create a loop on bead end of the wire with a crimp bead
Crimp Wire
Add fish to one end of wire and close the loop with a crimp bead
Fish with bead wire
Bead Wire crimped and ready for beading
Fish with bead wires
Ready to bead!
Bead “Bubbles”
add a few round beads with larger holes to cover the crimp bead and look like bubbles
beadsonfishwire
Beaded Fish Wire
Fish Element Complete
All 3 Fish joined into one element
Part 4 – Assemble the project
Use a large split ring (think keychain size) to and thread it through the memory wire end WITH the right angle bend, and the three fish wires (optional, join the 3 fish wires in advance with a smaller split ring, doesn’t reduce the work load, but may make wrangling easier).
Large Split Ring
Use large split ring and attach the memory wire element
Add Fish
Add the fish elements to the spring ring
Trust the process!
It looks like chaos, but it will be great!
Add Decorative Elements
Last step, I promise!! The idea here is to add larger bead elements to add both weight, to drag the spring down into a spiral shape; and movement, the bead elements will swing, making the memory wire element swing, which makes the fish move. We need one large fairly weighty element for the spring end, and other smaller elements for random distribution.
Large Accent parts
Use an eye pin to assemble a large blue bead and some smaller accents
Large Accent Finish
Make a small fold over or loop to finish the large accent and keep beads in place
Large Accent Finished
The finished accent
Add large accent
Twist open the eye pin and connect to the loop on the spring end, twist to close.
Small Accent Parts
Use the same technique to make several smaller bead accents
Small Bead Accents
Finished small bead accents
Add Small Accents
Twist open the eye pin and add small bead accents to spring, aim for a balanced distribution.
Finished Sun Charm
Hang up your project and see if it needs more accents or if it is gorgeous. It’s gorgeous!!
I’m thinking this project would be a great Saturday workshop, where folks can select their fused elements and assemble everything into a finished project. If you do go that route, please let me know how it works out! As always, thanks for playing, and I would love to see photos of your sun charm!