How to Make a Pair of Kumihimo Loop Earrings

SKU VID-1745
Designer: Alexandra Smith
In this video, you will see how to create this design using Austrian crystal pendants and pearls, S-Lon cord, and assorted findings. First, you will see how to measure and cut your 8-warp kumihimo braid. Next, you will see how to finish off the braid using cord ends. You will also see how to embellish your loop earring with a beaded focal, and attach an earring hook.

The brand name for the crystals shown in this video is no longer available. High quality Austrian crystals are now available under the PRESTIGE™ Crystal Components line.

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Audio Transcript
Note: This audio transcript is auto-generated and may not be completely accurate.
hi this is Alexandra at beadaholique to make a pair of kumihimo loop earrings so here I have a pair made in a beautiful combination of blues I'm calling them ice blue and we'll be making a red and pink version so what I have here is the kumihimo disk now if you're new to kumihimo be sure to visit our video on how to create an eight warp kumihimo braid that's what I've done here I've got 10 inches of braid that I've created using s long cord in four colors I have the light orchid the rose I've got dark red and vanilla I also have some 24 gauge wire and then for beads I've got Swarovski pendant in the hearts and I've got pearls by Swarovski and some bicones in five millimeter I have some sleek earring hooks three millimeter spacers I've got some seven millimeter open bead caps and these are some cord ends we'll be adding that fit the three millimeter cord size and finally some six millimeter open jump rings now for tools over here I've got scissors cutters those pliers and some bent chain nose pliers we'll also be using some e6000 glue with a toothpick and you will need a little bit of tape finally also I do have a kumihimo weight holding down my piece now let's get started you notice here that I have a little bit of tape on the end of my kumihimo and if you're familiar with this process you know there's usually a knot there well I was practicing some technique on how to best finish this off so I clipped my knot already just to clarify and so what we're gonna do is bring this in and I'm gonna finish up my weave just by bringing down I've got the three and one so I know where I'm leaving off by bringing my red down like so so once I've completed all my weaving I'm gonna go ahead and careful remove my chords from the disk and I'll be creating an overhand knot just like so again this is 10 inches of braiding using just the S lon no beads in there we'll be beating a pretty focal - hang inside of our loop got my not securely on also going to remove my weight and there's my length of braid so let me bring in my ruler and the measurement for this is going to be important because we want the two earrings to really match so I'm gonna bring in my tape as well and one option would be if you wanted to start at one end after clipping your knot and measuring four inches upward like so and attaching some tape you could do that or you could go right to the very center of your weaving and apply tape at the five inch mark and measure four inches out from either side of that center point so that's what we're gonna do I'm going to take some tape and put it right in the middle of that braid and I'm gonna want to get it nice and snug against this cord make sure I get as tight a bind as I can on that so I'm really pressing and pushing as I get that tape on to the braid just like so so got the tape on there and I'm going to start on one side I'm gonna bring in my scissors and starting at the end of my ruler what I need to do is consider the quarter inch of space that's going to be eaten up inside of this cord end that's included in our 4 inch measurement so I'm going to hold that right against where I'm at to make sure no tape is protruding where we're not going to want to see it so the ruler is definitely handy here bring this in and cinch up to about four well exactly four inches so that's where my finger is on the right hand side now that's where I'm going to want to put my next bit of tape so again I'm gonna cinch that nice and tight pressing and rolling that tape up right against the end of the braid and now I'm ready to cut so I'm gonna bravely clip on this side knowing that my braid won't unravel now flip it around make sure I have my measurement right there I meant four inches and four inches I'm gonna pull it up just past four on this side I see where some extra tape might stick out of that cap if we're not careful so I'm going to tuck it up just a bit and clip when I'm ready so this is where I know I want the measurement on that side and then I'm gonna come back over here and give a little more of a clip and I'm just I'm correcting as I go just to make sure I get it where we want it another bit of a trim what we're also going to want to do before we tuck these into the caps is give just a slight angle of a clip to taper those ends further because this is going to be a pretty tight fit getting it into just the right size of cord end which gives it a very nice sleek appearance so I've got that all set and what I'm going to do now is bring in my e6000 glue put a little of that on my post-it I'm gonna put these glue into the well of the cord end getting it ready with the tip of my toothpick there's a narrow opening so I don't want to go out too much in there just enough glue do you know that it's secure all the way down a little bit more and got that prepared I'm also going to prepare the tapered edge of my tape here so let me take my scissors and just give that a little bit of a clip at an angle now right away I'm gonna want to tuck that end in and turn it as I go making sure it all gets tucked inside there it is so that'll be a nice secure connection so I'm going to do the same thing on the other side now let me take it up to my ruler and see where we're at four inches I'm not including that little loop at the end just the very tip of the cord end all right so coming up here I see that I am about actually a four and a quarter inches if I include my taped portion now I could correct that by coming in with more tape but I'm just gonna keep that in mind for our other earring and make sure they match I think that my blue pair was exactly four inches but these will just be slightly larger and that's fine all right so I'm going to bring in another cord end and do the same thing get some of my glue into the well and give my tip a little bit of a clip and I'm ready to tuck that in delicate process it's very satisfying alright and we got it so we're gonna want to let that dry technically for about an hour as long as I've let it sit for about 20 minutes at least I know we'll be safe to put it on to our findings when we're ready now in the meantime what we can do is prepare our focal so for that I'm gonna bring in these really pretty pink Swarovski it's hearts and five millimeter bicones I've got some six millimeter pearls and then our bead cap and a couple of spacers actually I'll just be doing one at a time so let's clear that out and I'm gonna bring in my 24 gauge wire and cut two inches that looks pretty short you know I think I'm gonna go at three let's do three inches clip with my side cutter and bring in my pliers so with my round plier I'm going to create actually before I create a loop I'm going to stick it straight through the heart and that way I can shape the wire right to the pendant bringing the two ends of the wire across the top and with my plier I'm just gonna pinch the longer side straight off the top of that heart and coil the remainder of the wire just once around the base check it closed and for this variation I'm gonna put on two of these little gold flower spacers for the silver version I just used one but I liked the look of two for the gold so I'm gonna put those on I'm also gonna add one of my pearls this beautiful iridescent white then goes on one of my bead caps which is just slightly oversized for that bead but I liked the look of that sort of open filigree umbrella effect I thought that was pretty and then for this pink version I chose a five millimeter bead instead of six which is what I used for the other just to go with the proportion of the heart the heart's a little smaller than the snowflake so I made that adjustment as well and I'm going to grip just above that bicone kind of toward the back of these round nose pliers because these are fairly slim and I know that I'm gonna want to create some coils up there to have the heart dangle at the length I want inside of my loop so I've created some space there and now I'm gonna come up and over the top of my bead and you'll see that the loop is like so against where the heart is it's matching the direction of the loop on the heart so once I've got that loop made I'm gonna go ahead and close it up I'm bringing my pliers to get a good grip and create my coils filling that space for my wrapped wire loop beautiful put that all right so our dangle is ready to go so for the assembly what I'm gonna do is allow my ends to dry just a bit longer before we put this all together onto the ear hook so once that dries I will meet back up with you and we will go ahead and assemble the earring all right so I've allowed our cord ends to dry for a little bit and I'm going to gingerly assemble our earring I'm going to take up my six millimeter jump ring first I will slide on this earring hook then I'm going to take on one loop of my cord end slide on the loop of my dangle and bring up the other cord end loop I'll close that jump ring sure I get that nice and even alright so there's one completed earring again I'm gonna leave this to dry for more time I'm also gonna do the very same procedure to make the match to that earring and once I have them complete I will show you the pair so now that I've completed both earrings I wanted to show you that the way that the cord ends are attached you just want to make note that the loops are oriented with the jump rings such that the kumihimo braid is going to be facing forward so both of those loops are in the same direction also there are about four coils of space above that bead in case you're curious so I hope you have a lot of fun changing up the colors and personalizing the beads in the middle and if you enjoyed this video be sure to click the notification bell and subscribe on youtube for all the latest updates all these supplies are available at beadaholique.com thanks for watching

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