Apparently writing a 50,000 word novel this month wasn’t enough for me or my creative muse. Last night I finally got around to finishing up a project that I had been slacking on for a few months now. During the summer I discovered a site that makes and sells stone and beaded bracelet-pendulums and thought it was a nifty idea. Even better was the fact that I already had many stones and beads laying around at home, like they were waiting for me to stumble upon this idea.

My bracelet uses tiger’s eye beads from a broken bracelet, some smaller hematite beads bought for this project, silk string, a hook clasp, and a piece of amethyst stone that needed some TLC. I found some instructions on wire wrapping that I really liked and printed out a few examples to keep in front of me while designing my own version.

I spent an hour practicing the wire wrap technique using two different sizes of wire, 20 and 26 gauge, before settling on the thinner style. In hindsight I wish I had used my 20 gauge wire but that’s okay. Thin wire is not easy to work with and I ended up having kender solder some of the wrapping portions to keep the stone snug in it’s cradle.

The bracelet fits snugly around my right wrist and is relatively easy for me to put on and take off. I have yet to try the pendulum part out yet, but I am looking forward to doing so. First, I need to learn how to really use and empower the stones, I think.

Go check out all the images of my first attempt at wire wrapping and jewelry making in my gallery. You can also enlarge those images there to see the details better.