How to make jewellery - glitz and glamour
Making a pair of Cubic Zirconia earrings.

One of my favourite beads are the cubic zirconia, they just sing Glamour at the top of their voice and whether you choose elegance or a star studded finish these beads wont let you down.

We are going to make a glorious pair of Cubic Zirconia dangle earrings that are just the thing for this years office party. They wont steal the limelight from your lovely outfit but will definitely draw attention to your smiling face.

Materials:

• sterling 20 mm ball end head pin x 2
• sterling flat head 37 mm or eye pins x 2
• sterling Snapeez® 4 mm jump rings x 4
• sterling silver ear wire x 2
• cubic zirconia heart bead x 2
• cubic zirconia round 6 mm bead x 2

Tools:

• Round nose pliers
• Chain nose pliers
• Cutters
• Safety glasses

The first step is to thread your two Cubic zirconia heart beads onto the ball head pins.
We now want to get the two dangles ready with wrapped loops.
Make a right angle in your head pin using your chain nose pliers. Mine has quite a large neck as I am going to make long wraps as a feature of the earrings, you can go for shorter ones if you want small wraps.

(Not sure how to wrap, please see our wrapped loop tutorial here)

Two dangles tightly wrapped and ready to go.

We have one loop ready for wrapping and the other completed, you can close these wraps off as they are the only ones in the design.

We are going to continue with our earrings BUT before we do I want to show you two quick and easy alternatives.

You can simply take your two dangles and attach them to the earring wire as on the left, or use a jump ring to attach the dangle and ear hook as on the right, this second option will give you a bit more jingle in your finished piece.

OK lets continue with our glamour design.....

We are now going to make two bead connectors with our 6 mm cubic zirconia rounds beads.
I have actually used two pieces of sterling silver wire here but you can use eye pins or cut the heads off head pins. For strength I have used 22 gauge wire.

For measuring I use an 8 mm bead I keep specifically for my rosary/simple loops (see our how to here) and measure off a tail either side of the cubic zirconia bead, if you are using eye pins you only need one tail. Bend to a right angle and loop back with your round nose pliers.