Jewelry Basics: DIY Eye Pins for Clay Charms

A jewelry basic that every jewelry artist needs to know is how to make an eye pin. Making your own eye pins can save you money. It is cheaper to buy a coil of wire and make your own eye pins from it than it is to buy ready made eye pins from the store.

With polymer clay charms, it is important to know how to make sure the eye pins don't come out of the charms; whether you made them yourself or bought them ready-made. I hope this tutorial helps any jewelry artist who needs it, especially those who make their own clay charms.

1. Wire

I use stainless steel wire for my eye pins. It is sturdy, but can be hard to work with. Copper, brass, bronze, or plated wire are among your options for eye pins, but don't use aluminum. It is too soft and doesn't harden (it only becomes brittle), so it will not stay closed as an eye pin.

2. Round-nosed pliers

I use these

3. Wire cutters

I have to use sturdier wire cutters than the ones on my 3-in-1 pliers because I am using stainless steel. The hardness of steel would damage my pliers because they are not meant for working wit

Unroll a bit of wire from your wire coil. Don't cut it off yet.

Grasp the end of the wire with the tips of the pliers. The closer you are to the end of your pliers, the smaller the loop. The closer you are to the base of the pliers, the bigger the loop.

Holding on to the base of the wire with your opposite hand, slowly roll the pliers away from you, bending the wire as you go. You will bend the wire around one of the jaws of the pliers.

Continue to do this until the wire end in your pliers meets the straight side.

You now have a loop.

To finish the loop, use the pliers to grab right under the loop you just made. Hold the loop with the top jaw of the pliers, letting the straight side come down past the lower jaw. Holding the straight wire with your opposite hand, move the straight piece away from the loop and against the plier jaw, creating an angle. It is only a little angle, and we do this so the loop will sit straight above the length of the pin.

You have finished an eye pin. Cut off the wire below the eye pin so that it is however long you need it to be.

To make sure that eye pins don't fall out of clay charms, you need to make a 'Z' shape out of the straight part of the pin.

Hold onto the straight end of the pin with your pliers. Using your hand or another set of pliers, grab the loop end and bend the wire against the plier jaws so it creates a bend in the wire.

Move the pliers up a bit past that first bend and repeat, this time bending in the opposite direction.

Repeat one last time, again bending in the opposite direction as the second time.

The pin should not have a zigzag or 'Z' like shape to the wire instead of being straight. This prevents eye pins from falling out or being pulled out of charms. This works for both polymer clay and air dry clay.

I hope this tutorial was helpful. If you would like to check out other jewelry tutorials by me, click my name 'Little Lightning Bug' up at the top.