HYDERABAD: If you are a crafter, expenses towards beads and trinkets can hit the roof. How about getting the style quotient with less or no cost at all?
All it takes is a trip to the neighbourhood hardware store. Ask for O-rings. Wondering what they are? O-rings are really miniature gaskets, donut shaped, and used to fasten joints for various hardware projects. If you are aware of the pressure cooker gaskets, just imagine tiny versions of it They come in various sizes and a few colours. Although they are integral to the hardware DIY and tools world, O-rings have found favour with thousands of crafters across the world.
They are recyclable, can come in not just umpteen sizes but in materials like plastic, neoprene, rubber and the like. Plus, they are dirt cheap. I got lucky with a pack of silicon O-rings. And raced to get my jewellery making pliers.
This simple project needs you to get a hang of turning the nose pliers and flat-end pliers, and the cutters. With a little bit of practice, this one takes just a few minutes.
Steps
Fix the jump ring to the O-ring, and next, attach the smaller rings to these using another jump ring. If the jump ring is flexible enough, you could use your fingers to do the fixing. After this, fix the eye-end of the fish hook to the smaller ring, using another jump ring obviously.
You will need a plier for this. as the eye-end of the hook is tiny to handle. Your new pair of earrings is ready. Another option is to use eye-pin headpins. If you do, make sure that the ‘eye’ of these eye-pings is large enough to hold the thickness of the O-rings.
Otherwise, you may use jump-rings to do the trick. For this, you need a pair of beads, and eye pins. Insert the bead into the eye pin, and bend the part of the eye-pin just above the bead in such a way that you can make a loop.
Roll the hanging end of this loop over the pin’s part exactly above the bead, to hold the bead firmly. Once done, you will have the eye pin’s eye below the bead, the ‘eye’ formed above it, and the loop available when you insert a jump-ring to the ‘eye’ below the bead. To this jump ring, add the O-ring. And fix a fish hook, to the loop on the other side of the bead. Your new pair of earrings is ready. You can give it a shot, using O-rings in different sizes. Wear these as work jewellery, or gift them away.
Radhika Malladi blogs at http://www.imprintshandmade.com/