Today’s paper quilled jewelry tip is about how to top off your jewelry. There are many many ways to do this, and a lot of it depends on what style your jewelry is. The style I’m using for today’s post is a solid circle style. The tops shown here would work for other designs as well.
I covered some of these styles in this first post, but I am also including a new style here.
When making paper quilled jewelry there is one style of topping it that comes most naturally and that is to add just a single roll to the top. It could be facing the same direction as your design, or it might be facing the other, as you can see in the middle two photos here:
Just because it is most natural does not mean it is the best, however! When you are making quilled designs for frames, pictures, scrapbooking, etc. you don’t have to worry about how sturdy it is. It is meant to be delicate most of the time. Jewelry, however, is a different case! These top styles do work and can be fairly sturdy, but they have the easiest chance of falling apart due to an accidental tug or glue simply getting old (depends on what type of glue you use). Therefore, it is better to top your jewelry with more than just one roll if you want it to last longer. In the last photo above you can see that I have put 3 rolls at the top. For the middle I use a 3″ strip and for the two side rolls I use a 1 1/2″ strip. There is much more contact between pieces with this configuration, making it a much stronger top!
If you prefer the look of a single circle instead of 3 on top, then it is a good idea (and a great design look!) to wrap another strip around the whole design plus top roll. This gives a LOT of sturdiness to the design! There is no way the top is falling off of this piece of jewelry!
Here is a new style to top your jewelry, which I just recently started experimenting with. Instead of adding something to the top of your piece, simply poke a hole through it for the jump ring! I found it easiest to use a needle quilling tool for this purpose (find it here on Amazon) There are a few tips I have for doing this:
- This works best when your solid design is not rolled super tightly. You need to be able to work the needle tool through the design. The circle for this example was rolled a bit too tightly, but I still managed to make the hole. You can see, however, in the last photo how the purple circle section looks a little flat on top. If I hadn’t rolled the circle as tightly, this would not be so apparent.
- Push your needle tool through the design as far as possible. You need to make the hole big enough to easily fit your jump ring.
- As soon as you have made the hole, insert your jump ring. Usually for designs I add sealant before putting jump rings on. But if you do that for this, the hole will be closed up and you’ll never get your jump ring in. So make a hole, add your jump ring, and THEN start your sealant. (click here for some posts about adding sealant to your paper quilled jewelry)
Do you have a favorite way to top your paper quilled jewelry?
Click here to view some more tips about making paper quilled jewelry.
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Click here to view paper quilling tips and tricks!
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Click here to view some of my own quilling projects, with tips so you can make your own if you’d like!
*All products and supplies mentioned in this post I purchased and/or made on my own.
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