And if you are looking to express your patriotism, then blue and red earrings with a pretty filigree design is a great option.
These intricate and delicate ornaments are usually made with silver, gold or some other precious metal wire.
All you have to do is twist and bend the wire to create a beautiful design. You can make almost anything in this way, from necklaces and bracelets to elegant rings.
In this article, we’ll show you how to make a pair of patriotic filigree earrings, and we’ll give you a few different design inspirations.
How To Make Patriotic Filigree Earrings
You can create filigree jewelry by carefully twisting, plating and curling thin threads of metal wire. This can be silver, gold or any other material.
You can then paint the earrings, add tassels or your favorite gemstones.
Material
If you are making jewelry regularly, then you may already have a lot of the materials you need for making filigree jewelry.
You’ll need some silver or gold wire, a ceramic soldering board, water, a metal casting, a soldering iron, silver or gold solder, torch, tweezers, borax flux, paint brush, wire cutters,pickle juice and some gemstones or cameo.
Make Wire Arches
First, shape a few pieces of your gold or silver wire into arches. You can use the wire cutters to twist or bend them.
This will be the main structure of your earrings, so feel free to be as creative as you like. You can also change the arches in size.
Cut The Wire Arches
Next, cut your silver and gold solder into fine chips. You will need them a later later for soldering the arches together.
Then, place some of the arches together in a way that you want to solder them together. Put them on your soldering board and try a few shapes that you like.
Mix And Apply Borax Flux
Now it’s time to mix some of the water with a tablespoon of borax flux. This should form a watery paste.
Then use a paintbrush and dip it into your flux solution. Gently move your paintbrush with the flux over the joints of the arches.
Mix a tablespoon of borax flux with a few drops of water until it creates a watery paste.
Solder The Arches Together
Pick up some of the solder chips with the tweezers and carefully put them on top of the applied flux solution on the arches.
Then turn your torch on and start to heat the solder chips. It’s important to gentle warm the pieces from a little distance as they can easily blow off.
Once you notice that the solder pieces start to melt and they turn a translucent color, you can move the solder a little closer
Make sure that your wire arches are in the right position. You can adjust them with the tweezers.
Once you soldered one section together, allow the metal to cool for a few minutes. Then you will need to repeat the soldering process for each wire piece.
The last soldering step is to solder a small metal casting to the top of your filigree design.
Once all pieces are fully soldered together and your first ear ring is fully cooled, you can put it into your pickle juice.
This will remove any of the flux and other residue from the metal wiring.
Then simply repeat the steps for your second earring. It’s worthwhile mentioning here that your filigree earrings don’t have to be exactly the same.
They can look a little different, simply because each handmade piece is individual.
Paint And Accessorize
Once your filigree metal is cool and you wiped it clean from the pickle solution, you can get some blue and red paints to paint your earrings.
It’s a good idea to get some inspiration from patriotic filigree earrings online. There are so many things you can do with your handmade earrings.
Simply paint your earrings red, blue and white, or you can also add gemstones. If you want to create an eye-catching piece of jewelry, then it’s worth adding a tassel to each earring.
Different Design Ideas For Patriotic Earrings
When it comes to making your own handmade filigree earrings, it is all about the design that you like.
There are so many different options, that it’s tricky to choose but before you start making your own earrings, just look at some earring images or videos online.
Patriotic Filigree Earrings With Tassel
You can use any size and shape for the main filigree shape. We found marquise shapes with small pointy ovals very elegant and they work beautifully with tassels.
You can either make your own tassels or just recycle any tassels that you have around. You can use metal tassels made of chains or just standard fabric ones.
Depending on the size of your main filigree piece, they can be as long as you like.
Saying this, it’s a good idea to make your tassels a little longer than your filigree shape as it adds plenty of elegance.
Tassels in blue or red work very well, especially when you plan to paint your filigree metal in a patriotic color.
It’s quite easy to attach the tassels to your filigree earrings. Just cut a small length of thin wire and bend it into a small jump ring.
Add your tassel and attach it to your main filigree piece. It’s a good idea to solder the ends of the ring together to ensure the tassel stays in place.
Teardrop Filigree Earrings With Small Hoops
Teardrop filigree earrings are one of the classic shapes for many large earrings. You can use any filigree stamping that you like.
The same applies to the little hoops that you can attach to the filigree design. You can use round circular shapes or even a star shape.
Attach whatever shape you use with a small jump ring and then paint your earrings in bright red and blue colors.
The nice thing about this earring design is that you combine a classic shape with a more unusual shape.
This creates a beautiful contrast that helps to bring out your patriotic colors.
Star Filigree Earrings With Small Beads
Stars are always a great shape to use when you want to create your own patriotic jewelry. For these earrings, you use star filigree earrings as a base and add little beads.
You can either simply make your own star shape with some metal wire or buy a filigree stamping.
Once you have the main star shape, you can add small red or blue beads, and even gemstones.
Just glue the gemstones on or wrap the beads into a small loop and solder the ends together.
Final Thoughts
Making filigree dangle earrings in blue, red and white is super easy and if you are making jewelry already, then you will likely have all the materials you need.
There are so many different design ideas out there, just get some inspiration and try out a few patterns that you like most.
There’s nothing better than sitting down after a long, stressful day with a good craft or hobby - right?
Hi, my name is Helena Forsite and I am a self-proclaimed crafter. I love everything to do with DIYs, baking, crafting, and more!
When I was younger, fresh out of college, I developed a pretty strong anxiety disorder. I found it difficult to go to work, socialize with friends, or even get out of the house at all.
