Gorjana Earring DIY- "Love Story Hoops in Chocolate"

Gorjana's Love Story Hoops with chocolate pearls

From jewelry design company Gorjana, famous for their simple yet chic metal designs, comes these classic hoop earrings made with pearls and faceted silver beads. Gorjana jewelry has been featured in tons of fashion magazines including People and InStyle, to name a few. 

These earrings are perfect to wear to both work and parties, as their simplicity lends itself to many outfits and styles. My tutorial below shows you exactly how to replicate these. What's good about these earrings is that you can change the colors of both the pearls and the faceted beads, as well as make them with either gold or silver wire/findings to suit your taste.

  

My version!

  Plus, the Gorjana earrings are $80. I made mine for less than $4, using wire scraps and glass beads. 

Step 1: Gather materials. Needed are pliers, silver (or gold) craft wire, two silver (or gold) ear wires, 4mm glass pearls and 3mm faceted glass beads. If you don't have chocolate-colored pearls and silver faceted beads, like I didn't, I will show you how to transform them with a little nail polish and toothpicks!

To make your chocolate pearls, simply stick the pearl on the end of a toothpick and dip into a tube of shimmery brown nail polish (I used Sally Hansen Beautiful in Bronze) and stick the other end of the toothpick in some thumb tack to hold it upright and still. Repeat with other pearls and let dry about an hour (you want the nail polish to fully dry so it isn't  gummy, so no rushing!). For the faceted beads, stick onto the end of toothpicks as well, but paint these with a coat of silver nailpolish, no dipping. If you dip, it will smooth out the facets in the beads too much. Let these dry as well. Gently twist off toothpicks to release.

I used 4 pearls and 5 faceted beads per earring. The Gorjana earrings have 5 pearls and 6 faceted beads, but I wanted my hoops to be a little smaller (their hoops are 2" wide). You can choose what you want to do! 

Also, if you want to use different color pearls and faceted beads, go ahead! These earrings are totally versatile!

Step 2: Make the beaded link. You want to cut about 2.5" or so of your craft wire. Make a small loop at the end with your pliers, and string on your beads: faceted, pearl, faceted and so on, ending with a faceted. Cut excess wire if needed and loop the side closed. Repeat for second link.

Step 3: Make your large loops. Loop the remaining craft wire around a bottle of paint or some other round object and then cut to create two large loops. Mine were a little less than 1.5" wide. Take the ends of the large loops and make a small loop with your pliers on either side (last pic.). Now twist these small 90 degrees so that they are streamlined and don't stick into the center of the small loop.

Step 4: Finish. Take your beaded link and attach to one of your large loops (first pic.) on either side. Repeat with other link and large loop. You probably will need to gently bend all the wires a bit so that they create one large circle. To finish, add your ear wires to the top of the earrings.

This is what they should look like!

How they look when worn.

If you share/use/post this tutorial, please link back to me. It is much appreciated :)