How to make a wire bail for flat pendants

Even when working with seed beads you may want to create a necklace using a flat pendant but just don't know how to connect it without embellishing the pendant.  Well Beading Daily has come up with another way of attaching a flat pendant: creating a wire bail.  Click here for the full instructions or just follow along below.

How to Hang Flat Pendants? Wirework a Bail

I don’t know about you, but I have many beautiful things in my stash that I’d like to hang as pendants. Cabochons. Found objects. Tiles. One catch: They don’t have holes to string through. I could get out the drill and make a hole. But that’s not always the best solution, especially with fragile stones that may crack or shatter from drilling. One solution? Wirework your own glue-on bail.

You can make your own bail a million different ways, but here’s one method that I came up with today:

		1) Flush-cut 2 3/4" of 20-gauge wire.
		2) Use round-nose pliers to form a small loop at one end of the wire. Keep wrapping the wire around the loop so the wire begins to spiral.
		3) Grasp the loop within chain-nose pliers and pull the wire end around the loop, adjusting the pliers as necessary, to form a spiral with a 3-revolution radius.
		4) Repeat Step 3 at the other end of the wire so that the spirals both curl up: It looks like a Snidely Whiplash-style mustachio. Set aside.
		5) Repeat Steps 1 to 4 to form a second component. 6) Pair the two components so the spirals lay back to back.
		7) Use 26-gauge wire to coil together the straight wires of each component.
		8) Trim any loose wire.
		9) Use round-nose pliers to bend the coiled section in half.
		10) Place the bail on your pendant and use your fingers and/or pliers to make any slight adjustments so the bail conforms to the pendant’s shape.
		11) Use two-part epoxy or another type of strong glue to adhere the spirals on the bail to the pendant. Happy Beading!