These sophisticated earrings are surprisingly easy to make, and offer a wide range of possibilities for any design style. While we are using Triangle beads made with the Triangle Bead Mold kit, any larger bead would work.
Materials:
Triangle slice beads (or other large hole bead of your choice)
Cut metal beads
5mm jump rings
Ear wires
Clamshell bead tips
Waxed Linen or hemp cord
Tools:
Round nose pliers
Needle Nose Pliers
Scissors
Step 1: Choose bead order
Slip one of the triangle beads onto a length of cord, with a cut metal bead on each side. You can vary the quantity and style of beads to give yourself more design options, but for this first pair, we’ll keep things simple.
Step 2: Knot
Tie a square knot in the cord to make the earring the desired length. My loop here is about 3/4″ across. The knot must be a square knot, and it needs to be as tight as possible, I pull on the cord with pliers to make sure the knot is very small and tight.
Clamshell bit tips are findings that are designed to go at the end of necklaces or bracelets and cover the knots in beading cord. We are using them in a slightly different way here as a deliberate design element. The knot should fit inside of the clamshell. Using the needle nose pliers, clamp the shell closed, firmly, but gently, so it doesn’t twist and close unevenly.
After closing the clamshell, the cover should look like this, from one side, we’re calling this side the back
And from the front. You can see the entire knot is covered.
Trim off the excess cord with scissors. You can trim the cord prior to clamping if you wish, I find it easer to keep the knot in place if I trim after clamping the clamshell closed. The side view of the assembly will look like this.
Next we’re going to add a jump ring to that hook part of the clamshell bead tip:
Use your round nose pliers to curve the hook around the jump ring. Make sure you don’t crimp it to the jump ring, we want a bit of movement when the earring is worn.
This is what it should look like when it is finished:
Step 3: Adding the earwire
Add the jump ring to the earwire, in this case locking kidney wires. Make sure you orient the earring with the ‘front’ side of the clamshell corresponding with the front of the ear wire.
Gently crimp the ear wire closed with the round nose pliers. This may distort the shape of the wire slightly, you can easily correct that with the needle nose pliers if necessary.
Repeat with the second earring, and we are done! Change the color of the cord and beads to create a whole collection of lovely earrings.
