Make Your Own Ear Thread Earrings

First let's discuss exactly what is an "Ear Thread". An ear thread is a type of ear wire finding made with fine chain, a small segment of straight 21 or 22 gauge wire soldered to the chain, and an open jump ring. You can view an ear thread finding at right.

Unlike most earrings that are either held in place by gravity (shepherd's hook type ear wires) or are held in place by a clip or other type of catch, these ear wires are held in place by the friction of the segment of chain with the wearer's ear lobe. This could be considered a disadvantage of this style of ear wire as it limits the beads that can be attached to the ear thread to relatively light beads. The advantages to this type of ear wire is that you get a long earring with a lot of motion when worn.

Connecting a bead to an ear thread is exactly the same as almost all other ear wires. The ear thread has an open jump ring at one end and your bead dangle is connected to this jump ring by opening the ring using your chain nose pliers, connecting the loop in the bead dangle and then closing the loop in the jump ring again using your bent chain nose pliers. When completed the earring made using an ear thread will appear as shown at left.

The jewelry making technique for making a bead dangle using a regular head pin and beads can be found here. We also have instructions for making open and wrapped loops that can be found starting here.

The technique for opening and closing loops can be found here.

Making an earring using beads, a head pin and ear threads is one of the easiest jewelry making projects. A pair of earrings can easily be made in five minutes. The only caution is that you should not use beads that are very heavy as it is only friction that holds the ear thread on the wearer's ear.