Sometimes you want a fast and easy project. Maybe you need to create something fast today for your teenage niece's birthday party, which you just remembered. Or maybe you bought a new outfit and want to put together some earrings in matching colors so you can go out that evening in style.

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You can't go wrong with the Ten-Minute Beaded Earrings Project, which comes from page 46 of a great book, Hip to Bead by Katie Hacker (see references and Amazon information below).

Time of Project: Ten minutes. Really.

Technical knowledge: Nothing other than making a wrapped bead-loop out of a headpin.

Materials: (all available on Etsy.com or eBay.com or your local crafts store)
• Earring wires (French hooks), silver, two
• Headpins, plain, 2-inch, silver, two.
• Bead caps, 8mm, silver, two
• Colored glass beads, 8 mm, two
• In addition, I used two smaller beads (see photos)
• Tools: jewelry pliers, chain nose
• Tools: jewelry pliers, round nose
• Tools: jewelry snips that cut flush
• Tools: safety goggles to wear when snipping excess wire off the headpin loops

Step 1. Load the headpin. Take your first headpin and slide on your bead(s), ending with the bead cap. The book asks for one big glass bead plus a bead cap. I slid on two little beads first just for some color contrast. The thing you have to remember is to get that earring wire strung on the headpin last of all.

Step 2. Wrap the headpin. Ewww. My favorite thing (not). I'm really inept at this. But here goes. Take your headpin with the bead(s) and bead cap and grip it above the bead cap the end-point of the chain-nose pliers.

You want to wrap the excess headpin wire around the stem of the headpin ABOVE the bead cap, but BELOW the loop of the earring wire where it is strung on the headpin.

That keeps the earring wire within the headpin loop that you're going to form, but keeps the bead(s) and bead cap below the headpin loop where they belong. See photos.

If you're right-handed like I am, it helps to hold the headpin by the chain-nose pliers in your left hand. Then use the round-nose pliers in your right hand to bend the headpin wire into a loop around the curve of the chain-nose pliers.

Once you've formed your loop, wrap the headpin into two or three tight coils around its stem below the loop to secure it. Snip off the excess headpin wire.

Be sure to wear your safety glasses so the snipped wire won't get in your eye if it flies back in your face. If you're left with a ragged stub of wire sticking out, use your chain-nose pliers to press it back into the stem.

Step 3. Repeat. Do the above two steps again for your second earring. Then you're done. Yay!

References:
Hip to Bead by Katie Hacker, ISBN 1931499950, copyright 2006, Interweave Press LLC, page 46. Available at Amazon.com through this link: Hip to Bead: 32 Contemporary Projects for Today's Beader