Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Chain maille bracelet with pearls

My first wire work! Not so long time ago, I was surfing the Internet, and found many interesting tutorials how to make jewelries of wire. One bracelet tutorial made in chain maille technique seemed to be easy to make even for beginners like me :)

Chain maille bracelet with pearls tutorial


I'd like to share how I made this chain maille bracelet with pearl.

Chain maille bracelet with pearls tutorial



I made jump rings of sterling silver filled wire (18 ga, half hard). The rings have to be a little bit bigger than beads.


Chain maille bracelet with pearls tutorial


To make first bracelet link, connected 4 rings as it shown on the picture.

Chain maille bracelet with pearls tutorial


Then keeping them in fingers fingers as shown on the image below, I "opened" the rings forming them in a shape of nest. Places a pearl bead inside the nest.

Chain maille bracelet with pearls tutorial


Chain maille bracelet with pearls tutorial


Then, closed upper rings like it shown on the picture...

Chain maille bracelet with pearls tutorial


... and connected them with two more jump rings. This rings are starting next chain maille bracelet link.

Chain maille bracelet with pearls tutorial


Again... opened rings to make a nest, placed a bead inside.

Chain maille bracelet with pearls tutorial


Closed the rings and connected with more jump rings.

Chain maille bracelet with pearls tutorial


And so on until the bracelet is needed length. In the end, I attached a clasp, and the bracelet is ready to wear :)

Chain maille bracelet with pearls tutorial
And there are earrings to match the bracelet. :)

Source

56 comments:

  1. вот это работа!
    респект!
    ты у нас на все руки мастер!

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  2. Irina, it is so beautiful! And photots are wonderful!
    Thank you!

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  3. The bracelet is beautiful, and such a meticulous work; how long did it take you to finish?

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  4. Amazing! I love this. I thought I will never want to try something from wire, but this one is stunning, once I will find an appropriate wire, I will try it!

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  5. Wow, this is so cool! Irina, you are so talented. You should start making more jewelry!

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  6. Такая потрясающая работа! И очень тонкая и аккуратная, просто красота!

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  7. That is so beautiful. I made some jewellery with wire for an art project, and they were no where near as amazing as yours!
    xox

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  8. This is beautiful, thanks for sharing!

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  9. OMG! This is awesome! Can't wait to try this out!
    xoxo

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  10. Thank you so much for sharing this beautiful bracelet tut it is really gorgeous
    hugs Andrea

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  11. Simply beautiful! Can't wait to try this technique!

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  12. Absolutely stunning! Very nice work for your first chain maille project!

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  13. Beautiful, I've been wanting to try this technique. Thanks for sharing.

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  14. Love! But can't manage to work out the right size rings and beads. Has anyone got sizes? Thanks

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  15. Rings should be a little bit bigger than beads. In my case, beads size is approximately 6 mm, and the rings have approximately 7 mm inner diameter.

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  16. Amazing work!
    hard to believe that this work is a beginner!

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  17. Love your new tutorial, Irina. Such a wonderful idea!

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  18. Beautiful bracelet! Can't wait to try :-) My husband made a chain maille shirt years ago but I've never tried

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  19. I would love to try this. Can you tell me what size pearls and what the inner diameter of the 18g wire is that you used?

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  20. Rings should be a little bit bigger than beads. In my case, beads size is approximately 6 mm, and the rings have approximately 7 mm inner diameter.

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  21. I bought 6mm pearls, but the 7mm jump rings were too small and would not close over the pearl. The 8mm are too big and there is nothing in store that's in the middle. So you took wire and cut the size yourself? If so how did you make such perfect jump ring circles?

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  22. Leah, yes. I cut them myself. 3-4 times i had wrong size, but eventually i could figure out the right one.

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  23. Thankyou! Your bracelet is beautiful and it's a great tutorial.

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  24. Thank you, Leah :) I don't have special equipment, so I used just screw driver to make the rings... lol

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    Replies
    1. Brilliant - necessity is the mother of invention :-)

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  25. Thank you for a great tutorial. This is a very pretty bracelet.

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  26. Hi, I made the bracelet, and it looks good, but if I don't put it down really gently, some of the beads fall out. What's the problem here? Thanks!

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  27. Hi. It means that the jump rings are too big for the beads.

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  28. This is beautiful & looks so easy. I can't wait to try it myself. Thank you for sharing it with us.

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  29. Love the bracelet (and the earrings)! Aewsome job!!

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  30. What a very impressive idea!

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  31. The set is beautiful. Great job!!!!
    Saw a similar one from Mad Monnie website in Australia. I think she used a larger gauge ring to stop the pearl falling out.

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  32. So pretty! My current projects are gonna have to be put on hold cause I can't wait to try this out asap. Thanks for sharing & inspiring : )

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  33. Excellent project but I'm having the same problem as others with purchased jump rings. 1mm larger than bead is too small and 2mm larger the beads fall out. Really frustrating as it's a beautiful bracelet. Don't have any experience of making my own jump rings and scared to try :(

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    Replies
    1. The worst thing that'll happen is that you'll get it wrong. And then you Ightfield get it wrong a few more times. And then you'll get it right, and they'll be the best jump rings ever.

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  34. This is a very good tutorial and the photos are great.

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  35. Hi, I wanted to let you know that I posted this tutorial on my blog here http://wp.me/p2YkFJ-A because I received so many inquiries when I found and repinned on Pinterest from Saved by Love Creations. You have full credit of course! Thank you so much for sharing and I can't wait to give it a try tonight.

    Maryann Matas of Maryann's Creations

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  36. Been making jewelry for a few years now.
    I have never even been the least bit interested in Chain Maille until This !! Gonna try this tonight! I'll let you know how it goes ! Thanks ! This is Beautiful!! Carla

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  37. Follow up... Ok, I'm making it out of Tourmaline..I LOVE IT !! It is Additive!!
    Thanks !! Carla :)

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  38. Wow that bracelet is beautiful! I am so gonna make one of these. Thanks for sharing this with us!

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  39. So wunderschön! The tutorial is great. I just made one on my own. Thank you for sharing. Greetings from germany

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  40. I love the simple beauty of this bracelet. I am trying to make it but no matter what kind of stone/pearl used and different sized jumprings...the beads always fall out! Did you have this problem? If so, how did you fix it? If anyone else has any tips or tricks to help me with this please feel free!

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  41. Thank you for this fantastic tutorial!! I made the bracelet with lightgreen beads matching my new shirt, it's amazing!!!

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  42. I have these certain beads that have no holes drilled in them, couldn't ever figure out how to use them. This is perfect. Thank you soooo much!!!

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  43. Hi, Irina! My name is Maggie Flynn and I'm an editor at AllFreeJewelryMaking, a site that features jewelry tutorials from various blogs. Our readers would love to see the tutorial for this amazing bracelet, and I was wondering if you'd like it to be featured on our site. It would appear as a link back to this page with a photo and brief blurb, so traffic would come from our site to yours. If this is something you'd be interested in, let me know! I can be reached at mflynn@primecp.com, so feel free to get in touch. I hope to hear from you soon! Thanks so much for your time.

    Best,
    Maggie Flynn

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  44. Thank you for this great tutorial. I love all your creations! I'm happy that I found your blog. New follower here via GFC and google+.
    Marisa from
    http://passionetcouture.blogspot.ca/

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  45. Currently working on this bracelet and matching earring set. Thank you so much for translating the original tutorial.

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  46. Hi, Thank you so much for the

    tutorial as I am doing more chain maile as I find it
    distracting to the pain in my hands even when they hurt to it.
    To help out those who are having trouble with the pearls
    falling out and what to make your
    own. Get a set of calipers and then measure your perals
    and go find an object that is just sligthly larger then
    the pearl and then wrap your wire around it
    and see if when you cut them that it is the size that the
    bead just fits through. When you find it use that object
    to wind a bunch of rings and cut them with a
    jewelers saw... Hope this helps out... Rings canbe
    found online that come in more sizes if you look for them.

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  47. This is a lovely bracelet, and I plan on making it for my daughter to wear for her wedding in May.

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  48. I lo\/e this bracelet and plan to make it. Thank you.

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  49. I would like to answer some of your clients' questions. I taught this bracelet in one of my classes. First, the fit of the jump rings is crucial to the success of the bracelet. I used 8mm pearls and did my own jump rings using an 8mm mandrel, which becomes the right size after you wrap the wire. Important: If you use 18g half-hard wire, the coil on the mandrel will spring apart much larger when you remove it to cut the jump rings by hand. If you use Dead Soft, it will hold its shape and not get larger, but you would have to use7.5mm pearls in that case and definitely work-harden the wire in a tumbler with steel shot before beginning the construction of the bracelet. If you cut the jump rings apart by hand instead of sawing them, you will have one flat end and one beveled end so you must turn your flush cutters around each time and nip off the little bevel which reduces the size enough to fit the pearls. To keep the pearls from falling out, the answer does not only lie in the glib answer of "You are using too large jump rings": it may well be that you did not make sure to keep the first two jump rings TOGETHER, when you let the second set fall on either side of the original pair. If you allow one of the upper pair to slip IN BETWEEN the bottom pair, it allows the pearl to slide out of the wide space created. I thought this would be difficult for my students to grasp, but once they got the hang of it, they became like little mechanical robots, putting each little component together and they loved, loved, loved the results.

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  50. Hi I have made this beautiful bracelet in so many coloured jumping's. I found that it was trial and error and lots of patients, but it was well worth the effort. The comments I get where I wear one of them is lovely to hear. Thankyou so very much for sharing this with us all. X

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