BIRD charm TUTORIAL

*TWEET * TWEET*
I am always on the look out for
design inspiration and recently
I've noticed that a lot of High
Street fashion jewellery, contains
bird motifs. It's not something
that I am naturally drawn to as
a shape - but as I am always up
for a challenge ... I thought I would
try to design a BIRD CHARM.

The evolution of this piece went
through many stages with my
first attempts looking like weird
bird/fish mutation comedy characters!
They made me laugh, so I thought you
might like to see them and have a
giggle too!!


However,
I finally settled on one design and here's
the tutorial (just hope you like it?!).

You will need: 0.4mm & 0.8mm
silver-plated wire, round, flat &
chain nosed pliers, wire cutters
(Optional: hammer & steel stake).






















1. For a 5cm (2") bird ... Cut approx. 15cm (6") of 0.8mm wire. Using your flat or chain nosed pliers, bend the length in half, creating a point at the centre.

















2. Place the tips of your round nosed pliers next to the central
point and bend the wire up and around the side of the circular
shaft to create the rounded 'head' shape of the bird frame.













3. Use your fingers to shape the extending wires to form
the 'body' of the bird ...












4. In order to create the 'tail', use the very tips of your round nosed
pliers to bend a kink in the top part of the frame.












5. Using the tips of your round nosed pliers, bend the
wire back down towards the base of the frame.











6. Use the very tips of your round nose pliers to create
a crinkly edge to the 'tail' wire - bending it backwards and
forwards.
















7. Using the tips of your round nosed pliers, create a tiny link at the
end of the crinkly edge wire and thread the base wire through this loop.













8. Create a bend in the base wire to form the 'tail'
end of the bird frame.
















9. Connect the base wire around the end link to secure it
together and cut off any excess and neaten the ends.
(Optional: gently stroke hammer the outer frame - avoiding
the link - to work harden).














10. To make the 'wing' - form an open spiral, working directly from a spool of 0.8mm wire.















11. When the spiral is large enough, initially bend the wire outwards away from the spiral and then immediately back towards it to create a small tip or 'channel' end. You can use the tips of your flat nosed pliers to squeeze the tip into a neater point.




















12. To complete the 'wing' shape, use the tips of your round nosed pliers to create a tiny link which can be attached and secured to the outer frame. (Optional: gently stroke hammer the spiral wing frame - avoiding the link!).

















13. Cut a short length of 0.4mm silver wire and use this to bind and attach the spiral wing to the bird frame.


















14. Once the binding of the wing is secure and you've cut and
neatened the ends, you can secure the spiral onto the top of the
bird frame (like a paper clip).
Now, you can also cut more 0.4mm fine binding wire and create
a woven wire tail ...

















15. Once you've bound the tail and you feel the wing is secure - don't forget you can always use more 0.4mm wire to secure the spiral wing and lovely coloured wires for the tail end ...
cut off any excess wire and neaten all the ends.















16. Now, all that is left to do, is to bind an 'eye' bead onto the frame
with a short length of 0.4mm wire. If you wish, use a coloured bead
for extra interest, rather than my neutral 6mm silver bead!














The bird is now ready to FLY!
So you can suspend it from a
chain by a couple of jump rings
and let it soar ... *************************************************************

These motifs also look great fixed to cards:




The title of this
card could be:

BIRD
WITH
LARGE
JUGS!!