…to small glass bottles. I just can’t stop making pendants out of them–tonight’s newest Etsy listing is a glass bottle pendant filled with watch parts, and aptly named “Time in a Bottle.”

I’m definitely adding a new tutorial this week, likely tomorrow, on making simple earloops. But would anyone be interested in a tutorial on how to attach a wire bail to these tiny bottles?

Let me preface this by explaining to you that I absolutely hate buying something if I know that I can make it myself. Scarves? I can knock one out in a couple of hours (not that it really gets cold enough here to need them). Ear wires? Why, yes! And in a few different styles, no less.

These, however, are tutorials for another time. Tonight, we’re making simple wire hooks. That’s right–you can create your own necklace clasps!

Let’s start off with a quick review of our tools.

From top left, going clockwise, we have our chain nose pliers, wire cutters, and round nose pliers. We already discussed these in the Simple Loops tutorial, so head on over if you need a refresher.

For this tutorial, we’re going to be using a couple of new tools–an anvil or steel bench block (I’m using a small anvil), and a chasing or ball peen hammer. We’ll come back to these later. To make your hook, you’re also going to need about two and a half inches of 18 gauge wire.

Oh! I almost forgot a tool! You’re going to need a simple, round ballpoint pen or wooden dowel of similar size. Most hook tutorials will have you make the loop at one end of the hook first–I don’t really get a nice, round hook if I do it that way. You’re going to take your 18 gauge wire and wrap it around the pen, crossing the wires where they meet to form an X.

Slip the wire off of the pen or dowel. See how the crossed edges meet in the back? Our wire is lovely and fish-like at this point, but we need to change the directions of the X-ed wire to move in different directions.

Get your round nose pliers, and grip the wire on the top half of the X, right where the wires meet. Carefully turn the wire down, so that it is facing the same direction as the bottom loop of the X.

Do the same thing with the bottom wire–gripping it with your round nose pliers, turn it gently at the point where it was crossed with the other wire. You want your hook to look like the picture above after you’ve turned both wires. Now, let’s grab our wire cutters–we need to trim some excess wire away. We want to leave between 1/3 and 1/2 of an inch of wire on the top–this is going to make our large loop, the one you’ll use to attach the hook to your project.

After you’ve trimmed your wire, pick up your round nose pliers and grip the end of the cut wire farther along the shaft of the pliers than you’d normally go. We’re going to make a large loop here. With your pliers in your dominant hand, grip the wire with your other hand and curl the wrist holding the pliers so that the wire goes over the top and forms a loop (if the pliers are in your right hand, you’ll curl your wrist counter-clockwise).

There! We’ve got our large loop made. Grab the wire cutters again–we have to make one more cut. We’re going to trim the uncurled edge of wire very short–a little less than a quarter of an inch.

With your round nose pliers, grip the end of the wire–but this time, use the very small tips of the pliers. We’re going to curl the wire over to make a very small loop. If you’re right-handed and holding the hook the same way I am in the picture, you’re going to curl your wrist counter-clockwise again.

Dun dun dunnn! We’ve made our hook! This piece is going to see a lot of wear and tear, though, and even with the thick wire we used, it could use a little more hardening. This is where the hammer and anvil come in.

Place your hook on your anvil or bench block. Using the large, flat end of your hammer, strike all over the piece (you’ll need to either tape the hook down or use your non-dominant hand to hold the piece down–my non-dominant hand is occupied with holding the camera). This is called work hardening–we don’t want to smash the hook to bits, but we want to lightly work it over with the hammer to stabilize and harden our pattern. I like to hammer the large, curved part (the bit we made with the pen) a little more than the rest. This makes the hook fan out a bit. You want to strike dead on the piece, dragging your hammer a bit toward the outside–strike and pull, sort of. It might take some getting used to–and you might accidentally hammer your fingers once or twice–but you’ll get the hang of it.

The finished piece. See how the outside curve is more hammered than the rest? I’ve also pushed the edges of the hook closer, to make for a more secure clasp.

To attach the clasp to your jewelry, you’ll use your chain nose pliers (I knew I photographed them for a reason!) to gently open the large loop you made. Holding the hook in your non-dominant hand, use the pliers to pull the edge of the loop toward you (not out–this will disrupt the shape of the loop and possibly weaken the wire). Hook the loop into your jewelry and then use the pliers to push the loop away from you and closed. The hook needs a large loop on the end of the other side of your jewelry in order to clasp closed–you could use some large extender chain, a large wire wrapped loop, or something similar.

You can experiment heavily with this hook–make a longer, more serpentine S-hook, make the small loop even smaller, or turn the large loop into a spiral. Go to town with it! And most importantly, give your handmade jewelry the handmade closure it needs and make your own hooks, okay?

Yes, I totally photographed this thing on top of an X-Men comic book.

As always, do comment if you have any questions about the tutorial–I’m happy to answer.

Closeup shot of the bottle pendants I mentioned yesterday–I love these. This one’s up in my Etsy shop right now, and I’m going to list the other one tomorrow, probably. They’re quite fragile, but I just love filling them with random things and wrapping them up.

I’ve definitely got to get more of these bottles; I think for the next round, I’ll fill them with actual messages–handwritten or maybe pulled from the world of literature–and some teeny tiny charms, and definitely more glitter.

I don’t call my sister often enough. I mean, sometimes I get into a groove and we’re talking regularly, but then she forgets to call and I forget to call, and there’s grad work to do and Terry Pratchett novels to read, and before you know it my mom’s telling me that my sister’s just broken off a relationship with a boy that I didn’t even know she was dating, or somesuch.

She’s not having the best year so far; she’s in the crunch that befalls all undergrads in their final year of college, and since she’s an education major, she’s got the added bonus of interning to worry about. I’ve been meaning to send her a care package for a while–chocolate, maybe some of those squiggly topped pencils that she likes. And–well, I haven’t done it, of course.

A couple of days ago, though, I got motivated. I found a lovely purple ceramic heart, and a grayish-taupe colored ribbon. I made a jump ring out of 20 gauge wire and looped it onto the heart, and then wrapped the whole jump ring with 28 gauge wire. I added a couple of dangles–pale purple ametrine and shimmery sunstone–and then looped the whole thing onto the ribbon, finishing the ends with crimp bars.

Because nothing says “I should call more often” than a handmade piece of jewelry.

For this first tutorial, we’re going to be starting at the very beginning with wire wrapping–we’re going to learn how to make simple loops.

Don’t let the name fool you–simple loops will do a lot of heavy lifting for you in the world of making jewelry, especially when you’re starting out. Once you learn this technique, you can make dangles to hang from earrings, charms for bracelets, or even a chain of beads. You’ve probably seen this last technique before; the other name for simple loops is “rosary style loops” (or links), as it’s the practice by which jewelers create rosaries.

To start out, you’re going to need a good set of tools. Starting at the bottom left corner of this picture, you can see my chain nose pliers, wire cutters, and round nose (or rosary) pliers. Take a good look at the black wire cutters–these aren’t actually recommended for wirework. Their intended use is to cut soft beading wire, like Softflex or Beadalon, that will be crimped. However, these wire cutters get very close to the wire, so I’ve dedicated the pair to my wirework. If you string and work with wire, you’ll want to be careful about using these cutters on hard wire–the wire will eat into the pliers with time, dulling them.

Next, you’re going to need a headpin and the bead of your choice. As you can see, I’ve curled the bottom of my headpin into a spiral–I’ll dedicate a later tutorial to different ways of creating your own headpins. For now, a regular headpin is just fine.

Place the bead onto the headpin, and then grasp the bead at the bottom, between your thumb and forefinger.

Use your forefinger to push over the headpin that’s exiting the top of the bead. You want to push the wire straight over, as close to the bead as possible.

Grab your wire cutters and trim the bent wire to about 1/4 of an inch long. Notice in this picture how I’m holding the cutters so that the flat end is against the piece of wire that I want to keep.

Now it’s time to pick up the round nose pliers. Holding your bead & headpin as shown earlier, between the thumb and forefinger of your left (or less dominant) hand, use the pliers to grasp the end of the wire, making sure that there’s no excess wire leaving the right side of the pliers (any wire left on the right side of the pliers won’t turn, making our loop kind of bumpy). Notice how the pliers are graduated? This means that if you grab the wire at the very small tip, you’ll end up with a teeny tiny loop; if you grab the wire too far down, you’ll make a massive loop. You’ll have to work a bit to find the space that works best for you, but hopefully you can judge from the picture how far down the headpin rests in the pliers.

Curl your wrist over so that the wire forms a loop over the top of the bead. If you’re right handed, you’re holding the bead in your left hand and the pliers in your right. You’re going to curl your wrist up and over, counterclockwise, until you can’t move anymore. This will probably only get about half of the loop completed–that’s fine! (There’s a way to do this so that you can finish the whole loop in one fell swoop, but it was impossible for me to photograph by myself–that’s a picture for another day). Once you can’t move your wrist anymore, remove the pliers and reinsert them so that the bottom jaw of the pliers is inside the loop (see the above picture).

The finished product. Both ends of the wire meet, forming a round loop. Yay! We’re done!

But wait… what do we do with this now?

Use your chain nose pliers (I knew I photographed them for a reason!) to grasp the cut end of the loop, and pull up firmly. This is the same technique that you use to open jump rings–you never want to pull the loop out, as that will weaken the metal and change the nice round shape of the loop. Slide the opened loop over a link in chain, an earwire, or another closed simple loop, and then use the pliers to push the wire back until it meets the other half of its loop.

So why didn’t we just form that loop around whatever we wanted to hook it to? Well, it’s difficult to do that–and it almost never creates a perfectly round loop in the end. It’s much easier to make the loop and then open it with your chain nose pliers (which do not mar the wire the same way that the round nose pliers would).

A few last tips–always use heavier gauge wire with simple loops. You’d probably be all right with 22 gauge, but I like to use 20 for all of my simple loops, especially if the beads are heavy (if they’re really heavy, I’d probably use a wire wrapped loop instead of a simple loop, but that’s another tutorial for a different day). If you want to make a chain out of these loops, use a piece of thick wire or cut the head off of a headpin. Use pliers to turn the wire over so that you have an inverted L–1/4″ of wire on top, and the rest of the wire at the bottom. Use round nose pliers to make your loop. Slide the bead onto the leftover wire, and follow these directions to make your second loop.

Enjoy! Let me know if you have any questions or problems with this tutorial–and certainly show me some jewelry if this inspires you to try something new!