I often make my own earwires for my jewelry. My favorite style right now are balled silver earwires. It takes a little practice to shape the wire, but they are really pretty simple to do.
1. Start out with two 2 1/2" pieces of 20 gauge 1/2 hard sterling wire, cleaned and straightend.
2. Using pliers, hold one of the wires down into the flame of your torch. Hold the wire at the hottest point, which is right in front of the blue inner flame, until the metal rolls up into a ball.
3. Immediately plunge into water to cool.
4. The wire will be gray where you heated it. If desired, use a pro polish pad or steel wool to clean
and shine it.
5. Turn one end up into a simple loop with the tip of your round nose pliers.
6. Turn wire the opposite direction to create a larger bend. Here I'm using bailing pliers but the back of large round nose pliers or any other mandral will work too.
7. Make a slight bend at the end of the wire using chain nose pliers.
Finished earwires!!!
