How to! Moonstone & Chrysocolla Pendant

Hello!

I really enjoyed doing my last post, showing the steps to make a pendant so heres a slightly more complex one! I made sure the photos are a bit more up to scratch as well. Sorry if i go on a bit of a ramble!

To begin this piece i had to make a sort of frame, as theres going to be a fair bit going on and include two stones i needed to get this bit right.

It doesnt look like much but this chunky copper base will hold the moonstone pretty secure whilst adding layers and give me a shape to follow throughout the wrap

Next I attached a bundle of long wires that id pre-wrapped to the frame, its much easier to get a tidy wrap like this than trying to hold everything together at the same time.
Heres a few of the next steps...

Adding some copper beads. I get a bit nervous around this stage, as ive put a lot of time and effort in, so any fuck ups will be particularly frustrating if i mess up the whole thing!

Getting closer to finishing.

And heres the final result!

For anyone thinking about having a go at wire wrapping id say go for it!

Tools needed to make something like this arent going to break the bank, you'll need;

• Copper wire is very cheap so you dont need to worry about kinking up and ruining a lot of it (and you will!!) before you get it right.

• Stones can range from pennies up to hundreds of pounds, it all depends what you want. Best thing to start with is charity.thrift shop beaded jewellery, take it apart and you've got some cheap items to wrap. Alternatively go to a stone & crystal shop and ask if they have any broken,chipped or low grade stock going cheap. I love the look of stones in their raw form anyway so this is my favourite source for stones.

• Finally, you'll need to get some pliers, id recommend a pair of round nose, a pair of snips, and a pair (or two) of snipe/needle nose pliers. With these three you're pretty much set to make most things. As with everything you can get £5 pairs and £45 pairs. Go for the cheap ones to begin with and invest further down the line if need be.

My favourite pliers ever are made by Tronex, at £40 a pair they are expensive but for me the precision and quality make them worth it.

I'd like to say a huge thankyou to all those who upvoted my post on Amber last week, it was my first popular post on here and thanks to the steem generosity i was able to get myself some much needed new pliers so THANKYOU!

This piece is up for sale, if you're interested take a look here: https://steemit.com/art/@robali123/jewelry-pieces-for-sale