This fancy bead drop earring tutorial is one of my go-to favourites. It’s a beautiful, versatile design that you can customise in endless ways such as choosing colours to match your outfits, the seasons, or mood. Perfect for the beginner jewellery maker, it requires only a few basic hand tools for wire manipulation, making it an easy project to start with.
In this tutorial, we’ll focus on creating the fancy bead drop element of the design, including how to make a knotted head pin to secure your beads. To complete the look with the exact ear wires shown, you can follow my separate tutorial on Fancy Ear Wires, or feel free to pair your bead drops with any ear wire style you prefer.
This ear wire tutorial is designed with sterling silver jewellery making in mind, as sterling silver is my favourite metal to work with! However, you can use whichever wire you prefer for your DIY earring components.
I always recommend practising the design first in a less expensive wire to perfect your technique before moving on to sterling silver. Copper wire is an excellent choice for practice, as it behaves very similarly to sterling silver while being much more affordable.
So let’s get to it! Here is what you will need:
- 16cm of 0.6mm sterling silver wire
- 2 x 6mm bicone beads
- 2 x 8mm bicone beads
- 2 x 10mm silver bead caps
- 2 x 6mm round gemstone beads
- 2 x ear wires (For this tutorial go here)
- Wire cutters
- Nylon jaw pliers
- Chain nose pliers
- Round nose pliers
- Ruler
- Silver polishing cloth
Step 1. To start, measure and cut 8cm of the 0.6mm wire. Use your nylon jaw pliers to straighten out the wire.
Step 2. With your round nose pliers at one end of the wire, wrap it around the tip of the pliers so that you have two full loops. Try to keep the loops as small as possible by keeping them on the top end of your pliers.
Step 3. Pull the other end through the top of the loops using your hands and chain nose pliers, until you get a knot at the bottom. You will need to do this in small steps until you get a knot.
Step 4. Once you get to the end, use your chain nose pliers to help tighten the knot and manipulate it into a knot shape. You now have a handmade knotted head pin!
Step 5. Use your nylon jaw pliers to straighten out the head pin. *Tip* Be careful not to overdo it while straightening as this will work harden the wire, too much of this can make it brittle. Although, you will know if you have gone too far as it will break.
Step 6. You can now pop on your beads onto the head pin in this order: 8mm bicone bead, 10mm silver bead cap, 6mm round bead, 6mm bicone bead. Have a little play around with the colours and see what works for you!
Step 7. Using your round nose pliers hold the head pin vertically with a small amount of space below, for two to three wraps. Ensure this is the same for each earring, you can do this by eye or by making a measured mark.
Also, you will need to line the wire up with the round nose pliers in terms of how big you want the loop to be. *Tip* I have marked my round nose pliers in regular intervals with a pen so that my loops are always the same size. I have lined the head pin up with the first mark on my pliers.
Step 8. Pull the wire towards you first and then to the back (This helps keeps the “neck” of the loop straight), wrap it around and under.
Step 9. Put the loop on the side closest to you and pull the wire a bit further over and up.
Step 10. Straighten out the loop and “neck” of the loop using the round nose pliers and your hands.
Step 11. Hold the loop with your chain nose pliers and start wrapping the wire around the “neck” making two to three loops.
Step 12. Once you have finished making the loops, use your wire cutters to cut the wire as close in as possible. Use your chain nose pliers to push the remainder of the wire down.
Step 13. The main body of the design, the bead drop is now complete, repeat these steps again to get your second bead drop. Pop these onto your ear wires and give the earrings a polish with a silver polishing cloth.
Wonderful! You will now have a lovely pair of handmade fancy bead drop earrings that you can wear with pride or gift to family and friends.
To make the exact ear wires shown on the picture see the tutorial here on Fancy Ear Wires.
You could make these in all sorts of colours to suit any occasion, you could change the bead colour, use different bead colours together or change the metal to copper or gold. There are so many design choices with this one!
If you don’t fancy making these after all and would just like to purchase a pair, please see the link here to my jewellery Etsy Shop.
Feel free to share this post and let me know what you think in the comments, I would love to hear about your results.
Happy earring crafting!
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