How to Dap and Hole Punch Lilly Pilly Aluminum Blanks to Make a Pair of Earrings

	Earring Findings, Fish Hook Ear Wire 15x15mm, Gold Plated (25 Pairs) SKU: FEA-3020 $7.69
	Domed Wooden Dapping Shaping Forms in Assorted Sizes for Metal SKU: XTL-0259 $14.99
	Eurotool EuroPunch 1.25mm Round Hole Punch Pliers For Sheet Metal SKU: XTL-0060 $17.99
	Xuron Jeweler's Super Fine Pliers Chain Nose Flat Nose SKU: XTL-5450 $25.99
	Eurotool Hammer Rubber Mallet For Metal Smithing - 8 Ounces SKU: XTL-0247 $6.99

Note: This audio transcript is auto-generated and may not be completely accurate.
Hi, this is Julie with Beadaholique.com and today I want to show you how to dap and hole punch Lillypilly Aluminum blanks to use in jewelry designs. So here are what the Lillypilly blanks look like. They've got printed designs on them. Please excuse my fingers you can tell I've been playing with patinas and Sharpie markers here. So they come flat and then what you can do is you can dap them to get them this wonderful rounded shape. So it's really easy to do. I'm going to do it here with these pair of blanks something and then turn into a print just using a jump ring and earring finding. You going to use a dapping set. A dapping set is going to work better in this application just because it's not gonna mar into the printed surface of Lillypilly blank. Metal can be a little bit harsher on them. I've got a couple sizes of wood dapping dowels, a rubber mallet and then I'm going to hole punch my blanks. So when you dap the blanks you want to go ahead and punch a hole in the aluminum after you've dapped them. But to show you what would happen if you punch them beforehand and go ahead and punch dap it and then at the end of the video when we make the earring I'll show you why that's not such a good idea and how to easily correct it if you did go ahead and do it beforehand. So to begin I'm going to hole punch my Lillypilly blank using just a Euro Punch 1.25 millimeter hole punch. This is made for going through metal. I'm just going to insert the blank between into parts of the plier and punch down just like. It doesn't take any effort. So I'm going to put it printed side down into a larger hole. Eventually it's going to go into this hole which is the appropriate size But I want to start with a large one. Just going to make it a little bit easier to go so. I'm going to punch from the top and I'm you'll see me rotate my dapping dowels. So I have a nice even rounded surface. Once I made a little bit of an indent I'm going to move it to the smaller one. Now it fits a little bit better in there. Take it out and check out the progress put it right back in. I'm actually really happy with that shape. A little bit of dust was create from the wood. I've a nice round shape. You can see it didn't mar the surface. So now I want to punch a hole directly below the one I punched before. I'm just going to go in there eye ball it. You could draw a line to begin with if you want on the back side but I find it works pretty well if I just eye ball it. Punch down and there we go. Now I'm going to go ahead and do the same for the other. I did want to show you real quick. This started out looking like this and then I just took a purple Sharpie permanent marker. I color in the little flowers and we actually have another on Beadaholique.com showing you how to do that. So I'm going to take this little guy and put them. Now he's okay because he's got a lot of room to move in there. I'm just going to go ahead and and dap them. Pull it out. You might want to go and dap it a little bit more. There you go. So I'm going to line this up and see how I want to position the bottom one. I want it to go upright or down below. I think upright works. So now I'm going to take my hole punch. There we go. I picked out an oval jump ring. Open it up I'm going to link it through the hole punched and I want to add the top piece to my earring. Find my hole. Then I want to lay like this so I have to make sure that this is in at the right direction. Just go through the hole. We have the main part of our earring. Now remember I told you that it mattered whether you punched your hole first or before you dap or after you dap and this is why because that hole now It has been elongated a little bit. It's not quite as round and I'm not going to be able to get my earring finding trough it. It's too small so I'm going to repunch it. This is why you do want to go ahead and punch your holes into these after you've dapped them. I'm lining up my punch. I'm going to punch it. Now I can take my earring finding thread it through the hole and close it back up and I'm going to have a finished earring. Now you have a quick and easy earring using Lillypilly aluminum blanks. Go to Beadaholique.com for all of your beading supply needs!