Tutorials
Acid Etching Tutorial
19 July 2011 | 
Author Yesterday I received a call for help with etching. Today I finally felt well enough to get in my workroom and do some pieces for customers and decided that whilst I was using my etching acid I could probably attempt to get a tutorial done too.
You Will Need:
A design to etch on to your metal (flowers, birds, anything really)
Metal (silver/copper/gilding metal – I used copper oval blanks that I had in my workroom, for practising I suggest you use cheap metals not silver)
Tracing paper
Scriber
Jeweller’s Stop Out Varnish or dark-ish nail varnish (bear with me on this)
Ferric Chloride crystals (for etching on copper/gilding metal or other metals)
Ferric Nitrate crystals (for etching on silver)
Non-metal dish to use for your acid solution
Plastic spoon for stirring your solution
Goggles and protective gloves *I have suddenly become very Health & Safety conscious*
How It’s Done:
If you have your design to be etched ready then you need to form the metal into the shape you wish to use. For this tutorial I am using the pre-made copper blanks that I had already to save time and energy. Any shape will do as long as it fits your design and you can turn it into a perfect piece of wearable jewellery.
You need to make sure that the surface that your design will be etched on is perfectly clean. A little Jif/Cif powder and a toothbrush usually works well. This also leaves the surface slightly rougher and easier to trace your design on to.
After tracing your design on to your piece of metal you will need to scribe round the outline of your design to save it from being rubbed off accidentally.
You can buy a special solution called Stop Out Varnish, it is usually black, I find it hard to work with and even harder to see through if you are scratching out your design instead of painting your design onto the metal. I find that good old nail varnish works perfectly as a ‘stop out’ – stop out is basically something that covers the metal in the parts that you do not wish to be etched away. I use a dark nail varnish to cover the back of my pieces to be etched and a slightly lighter one for the front.
I used a really light nail varnish on the front of this piece as I couldn’t find my other colour. I painted the whole front and then left it to dry, then used my scribe to scratch off the varnish inside my design, basically my design was going to be etched leaving the surrounding metal the same. If you use a darker colour you need to be able to see your design through it and it makes it easier to see that you have scratched off all the nail varnish in the area required.
The reverse of this etching is to paint your design on so that your design is raised. I use nail art pens for fine lines and sometimes even resort to paint brushes. Nail varnish works perfectly for any metal that you are etching.
Now the fun part. Making up the acid for etching. I use two smallish ceramic oven proof dishes, one for my Ferric Nitrate (for silver etching) and one for my Ferric Chloride (for other metal etching). You can buy these crystals from EBay for a reasonable price and they come with instructions on how to make them up. After carefully following these instructions and using your goggles and gloves you can place your prepared item into the acid. *never add water to crystals always add the crystals to the water*
Then wait . . . and wait . . . and wait some more. This part of the process is going to take hours. Taking your piece out of the acid won’t affect it and is worth doing to keep an eye on how much of your design is being etched away. The longer you leave your piece in the deeper the etch. Don’t leave it in too long or it may eat holes through your metal.
After you’ve waited and waited and the metal has been etched away, all you need to do is use nail varnish remover to remove all traces of the nail varnish and you should be left with your design.
Here’s the finished ones I did for this tutorial
Now I just need to decide what to do with them. As always, I would love to see any photos of your completed work and hopefully I can get a section set up for all of you to show of your work.
Jump rings Tutorial
Time to teach you all to make jump rings or links to make chains from. This tutorial will talk you through the forming and making of basic circular jump rings/links and at the end I shall be, hopefully, getting you to make a chain that does not need soldering.
You will need:
Two pairs of flat nose pliers
Piercing saw
Your chosen wire to work with
round mandrel
A selection of various sized round mandrels
How It’s Done:
How it is done varies from book to book, and of course you could take a look on EBay and buy ready formed jump rings. Also, you can buy a coiling gizmo that wraps the wire and cuts it for you. Personally I find it cheaper and easier to purchase the wire and form my own round a mandrel *for ‘mandrel’ read ‘my trusty nail’*
I use my ‘trusty’ nail most for the links that I use. An important thing to remember is that the thinner the wire the smaller the link you are going to want to make with it. A large link made out of thin wire isn’t going to be structurally strong. You need to take a length of your wire and hold it tightly near the base of your mandrel.
My nail is about 3cm long, I find a length of wire about 30cm long is about right to make links around most of it. Thicker wire will need to be annealed before you form it around your mandrel. Refer back to the ‘bracelet’ tutorial for the annealing process if you need to.
As you wind the wire around your mandrel ensure you keep the spiral as tightly closed as possible. I find that by winding the wire slightly towards the hand you are using to hold the mandrel and wire steady ensures that it remains tightly closed.
Continue winding until you run out of wire. Snip the excess bits off each end and fit a blade into your piercing saw.
Hold the spiral of wire in place on the mandrel and use your saw to saw down the length of it. I hold my saw at a slight diagonal angle and remove each link as it is sawn free from the spiral. There will be two partial links at either end after sawing the links. It’s best to discard these ones.
When the links are cut from the spiral their ends will not be lined up. The coiling makes them offset and the saw blade will leave a gap.
You will need two pairs of flat-nosed pliers. To close a link, grasp the link with both pairs of pliers. Push the ends together so that they overlap slightly and do not spring back once released, this creates a bit of tension that will hold the ends together.
Pull the link’s ends apart so they can slide past each other. Then twist the link so that the ends line up. These steps can repeated when linking jump rings together.
So, now you know how to make basic circular links and how to close them after linking them together, it’s time to make your links into a wearable piece of jewellery.
This necklace is called an Idiot’s Delight chain and you can solder the links if you wish, but I find if you use small links then it doesn’t need to be soldered. You are going to need to form and cut about 500-1000 links depending on the thickness of the wire and size of the links you will be using. *are you all still with me*
1. Start by closing two links and thread a bit of binding wire through the two links to tie them together. Twist the binding wire so that the links will not slip off. This wire will act as a handle for holding the chain as you make it. Loop a second pair of links through the first pair of links and then add a third pair of links *see helpful picture on the left*
2. Fold back the last/third pair of links to either side of the central pair of links *again, helpful picture on the left*
3. Slide the last pair of links, that you just folded back, forward until they touch the front, inside edges of the central links *so it looks similar to the picture*
4. Using this picture on the left as a reference, separate the central links and insert a guide wire through the outer links *as shown* that you folded back and slid forwards. As you can see, this forms a single, complicated looking unit of four separate links. As you progress making these units you will find that you no longer need a guide wire.
5. Loop a pair of new links through the folded back links, following the guide wire. You can remove the guide wire after you add the first link.
6. Loop another pair of links through the pair you just added, then repeat steps 2 through to 5, starting by folding back the pair you added in this step.
7. Continue to add links this way until you have a necklace size piece of chain. Use an extra pair of links at each end to add your clasp and fastener link.
This technique can also be used to make an Idiot’s Delight Bracelet. For a Bracelet you are going to need roughly 200-400 links, again depending on wire thickness and link size. You can use the steps above to make one the same as the necklace or you can do the version in the picture, by simply following Steps 1 through to 6, but instead of repeating the steps loop a third pair of links onto the second pair of links.
*as shown in the diagram* Then repeat steps 2 through to 5, starting by folding back the extra links added in this step. Then continue repeating the steps, remembering to add three pairs of links instead of two.
I use this adaptation of the Idiot’s Delight chain a lot in my pieces. Examples below
Once you’ve learnt how to make your own links the possibilities are endless.
I’m currently making a pinkish chainmaille neklace with some links I’ve made.
And this piece was made using links that I bought off EBay. You can purchase this piece in my online store here with £5 off until the end of April.
Posted in Tutorials | 
Tags: how to make jewellery, jewellery designs, jewellery tutorials, learn to make jewellery, make jewellery | 
13 Comments »
Cold Connecting Metal Tutorial
Today I spent some time in my workroom doing this tutorial for all of you. I even finished the piece. Hooray. Cold connecting is a way of connecting your metal work without soldering it together. I must say, you either love this technique or hate it . . . though I just find it intensely time consuming and you have to drill holes, *you all know how much I hate drilling holes in metal* On the plus side, it really does add another dimension to your work and opens up a whole variety of projects. I still love soldering, and I will cover this in future tutorials, but for now this is a great technique for you if you don’t have access to a MicroTorch.
You Will Need
Enough of the metal that you plan to work with (I used Gilding Metal) to make two identical pieces
1mm thick metal wire (matching your metal colour)
Piercing Saw
A Chasing Hammer
Steel block, anvil or solid metal surface
Hobby Drill
Scribber
A picture
How It’s Done
You will need two identical copies of your design. Yep, I picked the Supernatural protection tattoo design. I planned on my piece being a sun design and as I had a sheet of these already printed up I decided to use these.
You need to stick your designs on to the metal. I use surgical tape when I’m using this technique to saw out a design.
My plan was to make a kind of frame, so I needed to saw out the middle of one of my sun designs. Use your Hobby Drill to drill a hole through the centre of one of your designs and pierce out the middle. This works for any design you choose. *only pierce out the centre of one of your two identical designs*
Then you need to saw out the outlines of both your designs.
Like so.
After you have sawn out your designs, you need to find a picture that will fit in the frame you have created. You can either design your frame to fit a picture that you already have in mind or, like me, go and hunt for one that may be suitable *forward planning was never my strong point* The picture I chose was actually from an Easter egg box.
After you’ve trimmed your picture to fit and are happy with it, you need to start drilling. You will need to use a drill bit that is slightly bigger than the wire you are using. I used a 1.2mm micro drill bit.
You can use as many or as few holes as you like. I used 4 because, well I hate drilling holes in metal and after the 21 holes I had to drill in one piece the other day, I thought 4 was more than enough.
When you’ve drilled the required holes in the front part, you will need to place it in position over the back piece and use your scribber to mark through the holes onto the back piece. Then you have to drill holes in the marked positions on the back piece. *have I mentioned how much I hate drilling holes*
Take some thin wire and use it to bind your pieces together through the holes you’ve made. Leaving one free to begin the connecting process.
Now comes the fun part! You’re going to need to cut 4 pieces of your wire that are long enough to go through both pieces of metal and leave you with about 1mm either side. Thread one piece of wire through the hole that you left free.
Place your piece on a metal block and using the rounded end of your Chasing Hammer gently tap
the end of the metal wire a few times until it flattens to the main piece.
It should look like this. Turn it over and repeat the process to flatten the other side of the wire. If you find that you have too much
wire you may end up with it looking like this. That’s perfectly ok. Simply use a pair of wire cutters to trim it to the desired length and tap it flat with your Chasing Hammer.
As you do each hole remember to remove the binding wire first.
When you have done all the holes, you should end up with something that looks like this.
If you want to make your piece into a pendant, simply drill a hole through the top ray, or top of your design and hang it on a chain.
Like what you see, but don’t have time to make your own jewellery? Please browse my online store Little Fairy Store, where you will find items of jewellery to suit any taste.
Posted in Tutorials | Tags: jewellery designs, jewellery tutorials, learn to make jewellery, make jewellery, tutorials | 11 Comments »
Finished Pierced Bangle
I had some free time today so spent it finishing the Pierced Bangle that I started in the Pierced Bangle tutorial. Here’s how your finished bangle should look, obviously that’s mine and your one will look similar but with your design pierced out of it.
Posted in Tutorials | Tags: Blog, jewellery designs, jewellery tutorials, learn to make jewellery, tutorials | 9 Comments »
Pierced Bangle
Finally got round to sorting out another tutorial. Firstly, I’ll apologies because I did start working on this piece to show step by step pictures of it being made but only got so far before I ran out of time.
You Will Need:
a strip of metal 3cm wide x 15cm long (silver, gilding metal, what ever metal you want to use)
Scribber
Hobby Drill & Jewellers Saw
Micro Torch & Multi Tool (Dremel or similar)
Something to shape your bangle round/bangle mandrel
What To Do:
Firstly, you’ll need to tidy up the edges of your metal if need be. I use a sanding disc on my Dremel to bevel (make round) the edges. You can also use this to round off the corners at either end of your metal.
Next, if you haven’t decided already, you need to pick the design that you would like to pierce out of your bangle. Something simple usually works best. I chose to do a repeating stylised fern design. After you’ve got your design scribe it onto your metal. 
Then use your hobby drill to drill a hole in each part. I used the starting leaf of each separate fern.
Take your saw blade and thread it through your first hole (refer back to the Pierced Circle design if you are unsure) and start piercing out your design. Depending on what design you pick, be prepared to keep undoing your saw and placing it back in the drilled hole at the beginning of your design or any handy hole that you’ve pierced out already. Don’t feel like you have to pierce out the design in one go.
Once you’ve pierced out all of your design and are happy with it, it’s time to form your bangle.
First you need to anneal the metal. This makes it the metal pliable (easier to bend) and less likely to crack or buckle as you shape it.
Annealing
Use your Micro Torch to heat the metal until it is a dull red in colour and then leave it to cool. Sudden quenching of hot metal in water may cause it to distort so it’s best to leave your piece to cool down on your soldering hearth.
As you begin to shape the metal it will become harder to work with, this is known as ‘work hardening’. As soon as the metal becomes hard to work with re-anneal it and continue shaping it.
Tap your metal with a wooden hammer to form it round the mandrel into the desired bangle shape. After it’s been shaped you will need to polish it up to get rid of any marks caused by annealing. I’m guessing that will be my next tutorial.
This technique can be used to make all manner of beautiful bangles, with scalloped edges or straight edges.
Got pictures of your finished projects? Please email them to me, I’d love to add a part to this blog of all your creations.
Posted in Tutorials | Tags: jewellery designs, jewellery tutorials, learn to make jewellery, make jewellery, tutorials | 21 Comments »
Three Bead Earrings Tutorial by Fantasy Jewelry Goddess
Many thanks to Emma over at Fantasy Jewelry Goddess for offering to do this tutorial. *Editor’s Note: By offer, I mean not making me hit her with a stick until she agreed to do it*
Ok, I’ve been asked to share a simple earring tutorial with you. So buckle up and away we go 
You will need:
Patience, alcohol…oops wrong tutorial sorry lol *coughs* ok lets be serious then
You will need:
2 Earring Pins
2 Earring Hooks
6 Beads (two of each color )
Round nose Pliers
~ Take your pin and thread your chosen beads on to them.
~ Then take your Pliers and we will start to bend the top of the pin. Get as close to the bead as possible and pinch, then bend the wire to form a upside down L shape.
~ Make sure the piece sticking out is away from you. Starting at the tip of the pin
head take hold of it with your pliers and start to roll it over towards you so it starts to make a hook shape.
~ Now you want to add your earring hook to the hook you just made.
~ Then continue to roll the pin until the hook closes and forms a loop.
And there we go, you made the first earring…congratulations
Now repeat the step to create the other earring.
And you now you have a beautiful pair of earrings to show off.
Huggles em x
AKA Your Fantasy Jewelry Goddess
Posted in Tutorials | Tags: how to make jewellery, learn to make jewellery, make jewellery, tutorials | 40 Comments »
Pierced Circle Design
Just to show you that anything can be made into a beautiful piece of metal jewellery, I’m going to pick a basic circle design that I found on the internet . . . like this one. Daunting, eh? 
You will need to buy some metal, I suggest copper or gilding metal as these are not expensive and ideal for practicing on.
Next, print up the circle design, you can enlarge it or make it smaller. I usually take a photo of my design and upload it to my computer, then do different sizes of it on the same page in Word or a similar programme, that way I can see when it’s printed out what size looks the best and I’m not wasting paper printing one little picture at a time.
Now, you can either scribe the design straight on to the metal or stick the paper design on to the metal and use the paper design as your template. Cut your printed design out leaving a little extra round the edge of the design. I use surgical tape to cover my design and secure it onto the metal. With this technique you are going to want to pierce out the internal pieces (marked with a blue square) first and then saw out the outline afterwards.
You’re going to need your piercing saw and the sawing techniques below.
Basic Sawing
Sit at your work bench, holding your prepared piece on the bench pin. It is always best to have too much material left instead of not enough so you should be aiming to saw the outside edge of your design. Start by resting the saw blade on the edge of the metal where you wish to begin and slowly draw the blade downwards (the saw blade should be straight and vertical). You do not need to apply a lot of pressure or saw frantically. Guide your blade around the outside of your design. until it is completely sawn out. Like the whale outline below.
Piercing
Sometimes you will want to pierce out internal pieces on your design. To do this you need to first mark the parts that you wish to saw out then use your hobby drill (with a suitable drill bit) to drill a hole through the part that will be sawn away. The hole should be just large enough to fit your saw blade through. Undo the blade clamp nearest to the handle and thread the blade through the hole from the top of the piece. Re-tension your saw blade and cut around the marked lines. See how effective simple piercing out looks? Sometimes you can use this technique for creating simple line designs in your work. See the photo below of the Dragonfly wings.
So, that’s the basics of sawing out your design covered and is, quite literally, all you need to know for this tutorial.
After you mastered this, I’d love to see photos of your finished circle and any other designs you feel like trying out.
Posted in Tutorials | Tags: jewellery designs, jewellery tutorials, learn to make jewellery, make jewellery | 3 Comments »
A Place To Work
After acquiring your tools, you are going to want to find somewhere to work. A table is perfect for clamping your bench pin too. But wait . . . I never mentioned a bench pin in my list of tools. Ok, technically it’s not a tool, but I should have mentioned it earlier. A bench pin looks like this and is used to steady and support you piece as you saw it.
You can buy them or if you know someone who’s good with wood *chuckle* get them to make one like this and clamp it to your table. 
Your work area needs to be brightly lit so an adjustable reading lamp would be perfect. A computer chair is ideal too, as you need to be quite low with the peg being level to mid-chest height.
And, that is about it, really.
Posted in Tutorials | Tags: how to make jewellery, jewellery designs, jewellery tutorials, learn to make jewellery, make jewellery | 6 Comments »
Little Fairy Tutorials
I get asked a lot about my work, my designs and I also get a lot of ‘how the heck did you make that?’ I’m fairly open about this, I studied Jewellery and Metal Art at college for 5 years and over time have taught myself new techniques and I research new things constantly.
Now, I know not many of you have got the spare time to spend 5 years at college, or the space to set up a workroom, so I decided to start this section on my website. Also, it saves me individually emailing everyone who asks.
My aim is to hopefully bring you a bunch of tutorials that can be done in your home and fairly cheaply. I’ll be covering Metal work, but hopefully I can get Emma over at Fantasy Jewelry Goddess to do some bead tutorials *Note: I haven’t actually told her about this yet*
First things first, you are going to need some tools. There is a basic list, it looks like this -
Piercing saw and blades
Jeweller’s shears
Hand files
Needle files
Parallel pliers
Snip-nose pliers
Flat pliers
Round-nose pliers
Large half-round pliers
Ball-pein hammer
Wooden mallet
Steel block
Ring triblet
Blow torch
Soldering surface
Flux
Steel tweezers
Pickle
Brass tweezers
Buff sticks
Polishing motor and mops
Steel Rule
Dividers
Scriber
That’s an awful lot of tools, right! Ok, you will eventually need all of these things and probably more. EBay has lots of these tools and all at reasonable prices.
My List of Tools
Piercing saw and blades
You can get fixed frame ones, but one that you can make smaller like this is ideal as the saw blades break really easily. But sometimes you can just shorten the saw and still use part of the broken saw blade.
Fitting the blades
Sit at your workbench, supporting your saw frame between the edge of the bench and your chest (wooden handle towards you, blade clamps upwards). Clamp the blade at the far end of the frame with the teeth along the top edge and pointing towards you. Lean gently against the handle to flex the the frame. with the frame flexed, tighten the other wing-nut to secure the blade in the frame. Pluck the blade afterwards, if it pings the tension is correct, if it plunks the blade is too slack.
When I use my saw, I always run a candle along the teeth at regular intervals, this is a habit I’ve gotten into and prevents the blade from sticking.
Needle Files
You can buy these fairly cheaply and I use mine regularly for rounding off corners, filing away rough edges.
Scribber, Hobby Drill and Steel Tweezers
I use my scribber a lot, I use it for marking out designs on metal and for scratching away parts of the varnish for pieces when I’m etching. I have been known to go out of the house with it sticking out of my ponytail (my handy place to keep it). Also, a hobby drill is essential with a range of small drill bits. You will need this to drill out holes to place your saw blade through for piercing working. Steel tweezers are used for holding items whilst soldering. Make sure they have wooden parts on the handles or you will be burning your fingers.
Pliers and Side Cutters
I have loads of pliers, but these are the ones I use daily. White handle are my side cutters, I use these for cutting of small pieces of silver solder for soldering and cutting wire. Green handle are my round-nose pliers for making loops in wire. Red handle at the top of the photo are my half round-nose pliers, which I rarely use and the two red handle ones at the bottom of the photo are my flat-nose pliers, which I use a lot. I suggest two pairs as you will need both for opening and closing jump rings/links.
Micro Torch
I have three torches in my workroom, but this is the one I use all the time for soldering and annealing (making the metal workable so it doesn’t snap when you bend it).You can fill it up with the butane gas that you get to fill lighters up with so it’s cheap to use too.
Soldering Hearth
You can get these for less than £20 and save yourself a fortune in burnt table tops, kitchen sides, etc. I’ve had this one for years and it’s still going strong. I like the fact that you can take the sides away or use them to prop up pieces that you’re soldering.
Multi-tool
Invest in one of these. Mine is a Dremel, but there’s plenty of options out there. Get one that has lots of attachments. Some you won’t use, some you will use constantly. I use mine for fine sanding away marks on the metal, buffing and polishing and engraving.
I think that’s covered the basic tools that I use. Any questions, feel free to contact me.
Posted in Tutorials | Tags: jewellery designs, jewellery tutorials, learn to make jewellery, make jewellery | 60 Comments »
