Circle of Love Necklace

I’ve had way more fun assembling a group of rings than I ever thought I would! It may very well be the simplicity of all those rings together that appeals to me. At any rate, it was an entirely satisfying project to create.

Round up: rings and lots of them! Vary the size, texture and design of the rings you’ll use (get an idea of how long you’ll want your necklace to be, then you’ll be able to better judge how many rings you’ll need); 7mm, 9mm and 14mm jump rings; 20 gauge wire; several glass beads of a single color, and a colored circle bead thrown in as a variation; a hook clasp (just the hook part is needed). Tools: round-nose pliers, chain-nose pliers, wire cutters.

Arrange the circles on your design board as you determine how you want your necklace to look. Consider placing your simplest and smallest rings at both ends of the necklace, as you move toward the clasp, and use your bigger, more textured rings and your glass beads more in the center of your necklace.

Once you’ve arranged your rings and beads, begin to wire wrap the eyepins that you will use with your glass beads. Cut a length of wire about 3 or 4 inches long. Slide on your bead. Make a loop at one end of the wire, but leave an extended tail that will wrap the wire around itself, as shown. I usually do about three or four times around, when wrapping. Snip off any excess wire and do the same with the other end. You should end up with a double-wrapped eye pin with your glass bead in the center.  Do this with all of your glass beads, and put them back in the arrangement around your design board.
 

Now you’ll need to begin to put the rings together using your jump rings of various sizes. You can vary the use of the different size jump rings for added detail and interest of your necklace.  You’ll use the jump rings to connect your rings and your double wrapped eyepins the way you have it arranged on your design board.  When you’ve finished connecting all your rings and beads, you can add the hook clasp with a small jump ring at the very end of the necklace.  The necklace becomes adjustable in that you can hook the clasp on whichever ring you like, depending on how long you want the necklace. The added length will hang down decoratively.

On the opposite end of your necklace, you can add one last bead as a decorative end bead.  Place this bead on a headpin and make a loop at the end and attach it to your smallest size jump ring, which will attach to another gold ring in the necklace.

Use extra caution and be sure that your all of your rings are tightly closed and that any rings that have openings will not allow other rings to slip through those openings. Otherwise you leave open the possibility of your rings coming undone at any given point, so use extra care. Enjoy!

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