This tutorial came out of a personal need for some simple, everyday earrings that will spice up my casual outfits and add just a glimmer of sparkle. I was grabbing all my supplies to make them and decided to also grab my camera and document the process to share with you all!

This is an intermediate-level tutorial, we are going to be soldering so be sure to check out my complete guide to soldering silver jewelry if you’re not yet educated on this skill.

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What You’ll Need

Tools:

Materials:

(x2) 30mm length x 16g sterling silver round wire
(x2) sterling silver earring posts
(x2) sterling silver butterfly backs (or an earring back of your choice)
Hard solder
Flux
Solderite board

Step 1: Cut Wire

Cut (x2) pieces of 30mm long round sterling silver wire. I’m using 16g wire from my scraps as a way to recycle what I have. Also, the length and gauge of your wire will depend on how big or small your posts come out to be.

To do this, take your digital calipers and set them to 30mm. Hold one end of your wire to the top of the pincher (claw? not sure what they’re called, the part that opens and closes, ha!) and drag the bottom “pincher” across the wire. This will leave a faint score mark.

Next, take your flush cutters and, with the flat part of the cutters (the flush side) cut the wire where it was scored.

Then, take your parallel jaw pliers and straighten out the wire, if needed.

Step 2: Spiral Your Wire

Next, take your round nose pliers and create a spiral with your wire. This just makes it easier and faster to melt your silver into a ball because you’ve helped it out by “balling up” the wire to start.

Ste 3: Melt Wire into A Ball

Take your torch and point the flame at the wire making small circling movements until the wire balls up. You can see one of my balls came out with dimples, this typically happens when there’s not enough heat, you can easily reheat it and smooth out those dimples.

A little tip is to hold your flame on the red hot, melted ball for a couple of seconds to make sure it stays smooth and doesn’t dimple. But, in this case, it didn’t matter because we’re going to be hammering these balls flat anyways.

Also, you’ll see that the first ball I melted did something wonky, not sure what happened here but I just remelted it and it decided to participate the second time, ha!

Step 4: Hammer The Balls Flat

Place one of the spheres on your anvil and begin to hammer it flat with the flat end of your ball pein hammer. Do the same with the other sphere. Hammer as flat as you want. I wanted mine to have some thickness so I only hammered it slightly flat.

You can also file the edge more smooth and round, but I personally love seeing the hammer marks and “imperfections” in handmade jewelry. I love seeing the hand of the maker in some instances, and this is one of them. So I left mine as is after hammering them.

Step 5: Solder Earring Posts

Set your hammered earring component on your soldering board upside down so that you’re soldering your post to the back of the earring component.

Place your earring post in your third-hand tweezers, making sure the flat part of the earring post is touching the back of the earring component.

Apply a dab of flux to the back of the earring and post.

Add a tiny pillion of hard solder making sure the solder bit is touching both the back of the earring and the earring post.

Now, take your torch and point your flame at the area where you want your solder to flow. It helps to first heat up the tip of your tweezers so it’s not as much of a heat sink. Once you see your solder flow take your flame away. Be careful not to melt your earring post, this is why I love smaller butane torches for soldering tiny pieces of metal.

Step 6: Pickle The Earrings

Heat up your pickling solution (I use 1 cup distilled white vinegar + 1 tbsp table salt). Drop your earrings into the solution for about 20 minutes to remove the fire scale from your pieces. Use your copper tongs to remove your earrings and wipe them down with a damp paper towel to remove the pickle solution and any fire scale residue.

Step 7: Polish Your Earrings

Final step! Take your rotary tool and insert your polishing radial disc. I love my radial disc set from Rio Grande. I usually start with the red 220-grit, then move on to the pink pumice disc then I finish off with the green 1-micron polishing disc, which leaves a beautiful mirror finish. No polishing compound is needed!

Lastly, I take my super sunshine polishing cloth and just rub off any dust created during polishing.

The last thing to do is try them on and enjoy! I love the way they turned out (I’m still wearing them right now as I write this). They’re exactly what my wardrobe has been missing and they’re super simple and quick to make!

I would love to know what you think about this tutorial. Leave me a comment below on what your favorite piece of jewelry to wear is! I’d also love to see what you make, tag me on Instagram @makermonologues, or upload a photo in the comments below!