Guest tutorial by Leah Hitchcock-Ybarra: Felted bead earrings

Technique Tuesday!

You may remember the wonderful artist profile that Leah shared with us back in December…she primarily makes gorgeous wire and stone jewelry pieces. Well, recently, Leah has added handmade felted beads to the line that she sells in her Etsy shop, called Michon. So just what do you do with these felted beads? Leah has provided a beginner’s lesson in fashioning a simple pair of earrings. Her plan is to have kits available as well as small bags of beads, so visit her shop for your supplies!

Materials:
Two matching felt beads
Two head pins
Two accent beads
Two earwires

Tools:
Needle or awl
chain or flat nose pliers
round nose pliers
wire cutters

Step One: Using a needle that is thicker than the head pins, poke a hole through the felt bead. Wiggle the needle around a little bit to separate the wool fibers.

Step Two: Put an accent bead on the head pin, then push the head pin through the felt bead exactly where you made the needle hole. Tip: if it is hard to get the head pin through, try putting the needle back in & use the head pin to push the needle all the way through the bead. This way the wool fibers don’t have a chance to get tangled together again.

Step Three: Using chain or flat nose pliers, bend the head pin at about a 45 degree angle where it comes out of the bead.

Step Four: Using round nose pliers as a guide, bend the wire into a loop.

Step Five: Wrap the end of the head pin around just under the loop to secure it.

Step Six: Snip off any excess wire from the head pin, and use chain or flat nose pliers to tuck in the end if it is pointy.

Step Seven: Slip the loop onto an earwire, and use chain or flat nose pliers the loop on the earwire so that your felt dangle can’t fall off.

Repeat steps 1-7 for the other earring.

Optional: embellish the felt beads with seed beads – another tutorial coming soon!

Copyright 2008 Leah Hitchcock-Ybarra. Not to be reprinted, resold, or redistributed for profit. May be printed out for personal use or distributed electronically provided that entire file, including this notice, remains intact.