Guest Author - Debbie Witenski

One advantage to learning wire working is that you can make a lot of your own connections, clasps, links, and jump rings all yourself.

Some wire work can be done with just your fingers, but it is easier using pliers.

Round-nose pliers are good for making loops and swirls. Flat nosed pliers are used for holding wire in place or to make sharper angles. Then your bent-nose pliers are good for bending wire around a mandrel, dowel or another piece of wire. You will also need some wire cutters. But be warned, if you are going to use memory wire, you need to set aside a pair of cutters just for memory wire use. Memory wire is very strong and will damage your regular cutters.

You do not need to go out an buy a mandrel. Some things you can use instead are; pens, knitting needles, a screw driver, pretty much any round object. It depends on what size round loop you want, to what size of an object you will use. You can make jump rings, round loops and even rings.

Wire comes in different gauges. The higher the number, the thinner the wire is and the lower the number is the thicker it is. Wire also comes in different hardness's. Dead soft is the most flexible, then you have half-hard, which is a little stiffer. A good starter is copper wire. It comes in a wide range of gauges, starting from 16 to 28.

You will use different wire gauges for different types of projects. The 18-20 gauge wire is good for clasps, the 20-22 gauge wire is good for making jump rings. Very thin wire, 26 gauge and smaller works well for wrapping. Wrap it around other wire or beads for different looks for your projects. The thin wire also tends to behave like fiber and can be used in things like stitching, coiling, weaving and lacing.

Wire also comes in different shapes. The most common shapes of wire are half-round, round and square. Use half-round to make even wraps or bindings when you need to wrap multiple wires together. You can make nice earrings with the 20 gauge round wire. Now, the Square wire is great for forming the base of a piece.

When you are first starting out, you'll want to start with "foundation skills". This is things like; making open loops, wrapped loops, coiling and spiraling. This will give you the feel of working with wire and the tools you use to manipulate it.