At first I started with a piece of shiny brown aluminium craft wire, that caught my eye in a local craft shop. Aluminium craft wire is a soft a malleable wire, that can easily bent with your fingers and is available in many colours. It also can be rigid enough to hold it's shape. At first I made into an oval shape, then I added some tiny turquoise blue seed beads, that I found in my bead stash, which I have wanted to use for a while, because they are soo pretty. I strung them onto a piece of thin silver wire and then started wrapping them around the oval frame.
This is what I ended up with, yes I know it looks strange, it reminds me of something you'd find in the ocean, some sort of sea creäture. The fringe bits at the bottom, were made from uneven strips of wire, that I just bent and curved around a round nose pliers. After I made this, I thought it would make an interesting pendant, but I've not got around to making it into a necklace. I'm not even sure I will make it into one, it's one of the most unusual pieces I've ever made. If there is anyone out there that can suggest a suitable stringing material, I would love to hear from them.
After making this pendant, I wanted to make a pair of earrings, I did not have a design in my head, I just bent the wire around into a circle, then made a spiral shape and added some blue Czech glass nugget beads, that hung from the base and created some movement and these are the earrings I came up with!
Again, they are an unusual design, but that's what I love about making jewellery with wire, the designs don't always turn out how you expect them to turn out, there are no hard and fast rules about jewellery making, just the freedom of creating whatever your tools, hands and imagination lets you create.
Most of my handmade jewellery is one-off pieces, if you would like to see my work, then head over to www.michelleshandcraftedjewellery.com
