How to Choose the Right Size of Round Memory Wire for Your Design

SKU VID-1795
Designer: Kat Silvia
In this video you will see the 3 sizes of round memory wire side by side as well as learn a few tips when it comes to choosing the best size of round memory wire for your design. We also offer ring, necklace, and oval memory wire.
Audio Transcript
Note: This audio transcript is auto-generated and may not be completely accurate.
hi this is kat with beadaholique.com and in this video i'm going to show you how to make a memory wire bangle using braided cork cord now here i have one finished example and the reason i brought out this example here is not only to show you what it looks like when it's finished but to show you that there's a lot of different things that you can do to embellish the end caps here so that you can do a lot of these and actually stack them up as nice little bangles so the memory wire that i'm going to be using here today is actually the 2.5 diameter so this is two and a half inches across now this is obviously meant to expand as you can see here so it will go around the wrist but the reason i wanted to use a larger size for this is so that it does wear a little bit more like a bangle so what are we going to need to complete this we're going to need a couple of end caps and these are going to fit our six millimeter cord i have a little jump ring i have a little elephant charm there i also have some little gold beads and a head pin that i'm going to create a little dangle on and then i have my braided cork cord here and then i also have some e6000 and a little toothpick to help me with that now the tools that you're going to need is we do have a special cutter for the wrigley's cork cord here so i have that here i have a pair of round nose pliers chain nose pliers and flush cutters so i have everything ready to go here the only other thing that i suggest you have ready on hand is a handy dandy roller all right so let's get started and the first thing i'm going to do is i'm going to create my little pieces here my little dangles because this is a little easier to do before you complete the entire bracelet okay so the first thing i'm going to do is just very simply i'm going to take my little jump ring here and just twist it to open it hook on my little elephant charm and then hook on one of those little end caps there and now just twist to close that back up and you can add any charm that you like but now we have one piece that's ready to go all right so for the second piece here what i'm going to do is i'm going to take my head pin i'm going to string on three of these little gold beads and these are the same gold beads that i used in the other example so if i wanted to stack these up those it'll be a nice cohesive look there all right so let those fall all the way down to the bottom and now what i'm going to do is i'm going to come in just above where that last little uh bead is and then i'm just gonna bend it back wrap it up and over the top wrap it across but before i close that fully i'm gonna take that little end cap and slip it on there there we go just slide that in there we go and now i have it on there but i haven't finished the wrap yet so now i'm just going to come in with my round nose pliers and just sort of pinch that little loop there and because it's a short head pin i'm going to grab the end of it with my chain nose pliers and wrap it around to the other side wrap it up and over one more time and once more there we go all right so i have a nice little wrapped wire loop that's right attached to my end cap and then i just need to come in with my flush cutters here and trim that tail so i have both of my little pieces ready to go on the end all right so now what we're going to do is let's take care of our memory wire and our cork cord here move that off to the side okay so if you're looking at this cork cord here you'll see that there's actually a little tube on the inside there so it's a nice little cavity that we're just going to slip that wire right down through but before we do that we want to measure and cut our cork cord here so i'm going to use about 10 inches and just stretch it out measure about 10 inches there there we go and then to cut just go ahead and open up your cutters there and always press down with the blade so we're going to slip it in there and then give it a nice press and release so i'm going to set the extra aside and set my cutters aside set my ruler aside and now we are ready to string it onto the memory wire so to one end i'm just going to leave the whole coil as it is that way i don't have any waste so what i'm going to do is just i'm just going to slide it right down through the center there and just sort of feed it through that tube and you'll see the wire will start to come together in a nice formation and this is really easy you just kind of slip it through and there we go out it popped on the other side so once it's about that far out you can see it's just maybe a quarter of an inch just go ahead and push that back in a little bit because we don't want it to be too much we really just are using the memory wire to give a little bit of structure there so the other thing that you're going to need is you're going to need a pair of memory wire cutters and i'm sorry i forgot to mention that in the very beginning so we're just going to pull it back through just a little bit come in with our memory wire cutters trim it and now we can just scooch that back in just like so so now we have our memory wire in there and you can see that it has that shape of that memory wire now all right let's go ahead and set our memory wire aside and you must use the memory wire cutters to cut memory wire otherwise you will ruin your flush cutters and i really don't want that to happen to you okay so now we are ready to attach our little end caps here and we're going to use some of that e6000 and i'm just going to put a little bit onto a little sticky note that i have here just makes it easier to apply and you can close your glue up right away there we go all right so just grab a little dollop there and what we're going to do is we're just going to put it into the well of our little end cap there kind of smoosh it around a little make sure it gets on all the sides and we're just going to scrape the sides there and then just go ahead and slide that onto one end here now as you do it i like to just kind of twist it on just kind of make sure that it really gets all that glue in there but one thing that you're going to want to be mindful of is keeping that loop of the end cap perpendicular so we want to keep that nice and straight up and down as we're looking at the front of the bracelet okay so now we're going to repeat on the other side now that might actually change now that i'm thinking about it that might actually change depending on the charm or the the piece that you have on there so if that if you need to rotate it feel free to do so but just this is your opportunity to do so before you um commit to having it dry fully all right and same thing on this side i'm just going to give it a little little twist a little twist there and this one i do want to hang down because if you see you can see that that loop and the charm are going to hang sort of the right way so that's it that's all you have to do and you can create a whole stack of these guys and just really stack them up the cork cord comes in many different colors it's really beautiful and it opens nice and easily like a bangle so it's easy to slip on and wear and then it can kind of move around the wrist i have about a six and a half inch wrist so if that gives you a little bit of context for how big this is all right there you go that is how to create a memory wire bangle using cork cord i hope you enjoyed this video you can get all of these supplies and see even more videos by heading over to beadaholique.com you

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K
Kate
Very good info about memory wire

Thanks for clarifying the different types of memory wire.

D
Debra Schwartz
3 sizes of memory wire - Yay!

Once again a very helpful video showing the different sizes of memory wire.
Thanks for making these informative videos Beadaholique.

M
Mary
Good To Know!

I've been thinking about giving memory wire a try for some time now, but never knew where to start. This video gives some good information for a first-timer with memory wire; it answered some questions I had and even brought up some issues that hadn't occurred to me. Thank you for the boost in the right direction!

M
Meli
Fun and easy to use

This video was super helpful in regards to choosing the right size memory wire but it also showcases how versatile it is in making different designs..one of my favourite things to use in jewellery making

D
Donna L
Tutorial on Correct Memory Wire Selection

Great job showing and explaining choosing the correct size of memory wire. Thanks for showing how easy it is to make and finish a bracelet using glass fire beads.