How to Make Hoop Earrings

Tools and materials:

• 20 gauge half-hard round wire 
• Wire cutters
• Round nose pliers
• Chain nose pliers
• Ring mandrel
• Hammer
• Anvil
• Ruler
• Metal file

1. Cut the wire

Start by cutting two pieces of wire about 3.5 inches (9cm) each. Check to see that both wires are exactly the same size as one another. Then trim the ends and give them flush cuts. 

The hoops that we’re making go directly into your ears, so if you have metal sensitivity, just keep that in mind when you're choosing your wire. 

2. Make loops

Now, with your round nose pliers, you are going to make loops on these two wires.

I suggest drawing a mark on the pliers with a sharpie, and then you can line up the wires with the mark so that your loops will be uniform. It doesn't matter so much where you put this mark for this project. 

To make the loop, hold the end of the wire in the round-nosed pliers. The wire should be at the top of the pliers but not poking through.

Then twist your wrist away and wrap the wire with your thumb around the pliers.

Once you get as far as you can go, readjust and complete the loop.

To make the loop more centered, put your round-nosed pliers back in and twist back to straighten the loop.

This oftentimes will open up the loop, and if that happens, just take your chain nose pliers and carefully close the loop. Do the same thing with the other wire. 

Your loop will look like this.

3. Hammer the loops

Now hammer the loop of each wire. You will need to use a nylon or hard plastic rawhide hammer for this, these types of hammers will harden the wire without flattening it.

4. File the wire

File the ends of the wire because these are going to go through your ears, and you don’t want them to be jagged.

5. Turn the earrings into loops

Now we’re going to form our earrings into hoops. Bend them around your ring mandrel. 

If you don't have a ring mandrel, you could use anything that's sort of cylindrical that you can wrap around and make a loop.

You want the end of the wire to almost meet the loop.

6. Hammer the hoops

Now hammer again. We want to hammer most of the hoop, leaving just the last quarter to half an inch (0.6-1.3cm) on either side.

7. Make a bend

Make a little bend at the end of the wire.

To do this, take your chain nose pliers and hold them at the tip of the wire and bend up. Repeat with the other earring.

As I mentioned before, you can make a mark on the chain nose pliers so you know exactly where to do that little bend.

And then that just hooks into the loop.

8. Put earring on the ring mandrel

Put the earring back on your ring mandrel, and push it down as far as you can go. That's just to make sure everything's still in a round shape.

How to make hoop earrings

Here we have our simple silver hoop earrings!

To put them on, unhook them, put the wire through your ear and then hook them in the back. The loop will hang right against the back of your ear lobe.

I love the understated elegance of these earrings. Of course, if you wanted to you could also embellish them by adding on some charms or other decorative elements.

I’d love it if you gave these earrings a go for yourself! Let me know in the comments how you get on.