Hi there. Welcome to another Friday Findings video. Today I'm going to show you a cool
new tool called the 1 Step Looper. This tool only does one thing but it does it very well.
What it does is it makes loops such as this one.
We make a lot of these when we put together jewelry. We may make a loop on the end of
a headpin after adding some beads to make a bead dangle, or we may make a loop on the
end of an eye pin to make a bead connector, or we may make both of those loops ourselves
rather than eye pins. I thought I would show you how this works
and give you some ideas for how you can use it. Here is one example of how you can use
this. Here is a decorative headpin with a bead on it and here is our tool.
The way it works is you slide your headpin under that pin through the cutting jaws and
if it's long, you slide the bead all the way up to this jaw right here and there's a little
hole back here for the excess wire to go through. Then all you do is squeeze your pliers.
Make sure you allow your headpin to go up to 12 o'clock because that will give you a
more closed headpin. Now, this is one thing I don't really love about it is that it doesn't
close it entirely but you can just take a pair of pliers and give it a twist and close
it up. This is how you would make a bead dangle. You could also start with rather than a purchased
headpin you could start with a purchased eye pin. Slide your beads on and it works the
exact same way. Beads go under that pin through the cutting jaws and the excess goes out the
hole. Now if you want to get a nicer bend and get
your loop more centered, you can grab it and just bend it back a little bit and that will
center your loop better over your beads. Then once again, you can grasp that loop and just
give it a little twist to close it. Now, you have a bead dangle. This will work on any
kind of headpins, plain headpins, decorative headpins, eye pins. It doesn't matter.
Now, the directions say that it will work anywhere from 26 to 18 gauge wire. This is
a 26 gauge headpin. It's very fine. You can see a couple of things about it. First of
all, it turns out not so round. It also turns out quite open.
Also, I simply wouldn't recommend using simple loops on any wire less than 20 gauge, 22 gauge
sort of that might be, that's borderline. I would say you would use these pliers for
18 or 20 gauge wire to make simple loops. Now you can also, like I said, you could start
with purchased headpins or eye pins but you can also make your own eye pins and bead links
with wire. What's nice about this is you don't have to have very much waste at all.
This is a length of wire that I have. It's about 10 inches long. This isn't anything
precious but let's say it was sterling silver or even just sterling silver filled and I
didn't want to waste much of it. Right here are the cutters that trim your
wire before bending it into a loop. So anything that goes past them is going to be waste.
So, if you don't want to waste much of your wire when you put it in, the less you have sticking
out beyond those cutters, the less you will waste.
Here we'll just go ahead and make an eye pin. There's your eye pin. That was the waste.
So there's our loop and our nice long piece of wire that we're trying not to waste much
of. I'm going to slide my beads on. Slide them
all the way down to that first loop. If you're going to make bead connectors, you may want
to straighten your wire. Now, this whole length of wire goes through that hole into the tool
and we'll just slide it all the way up. Once again, the last bead is right (don't
let it go in there) right up against that jaw of the pliers. Now, there's no waste.
We have perfect, consistent loops. I think this is a great tool. It does one
thing. It does it well. It makes loops of one size and that's it. So, it's great for multiples
if you're going to be making a bracelet like the one in this video that has 63 simple loops
or you're going to be making something else with lots and lots of dangles, then it's a
wonderful idea. But in my opinion, you should definitely learn
with a pair of round nose pliers and chain nose pliers and wire cutters to make your
own loops because there are times when you'll want to make them smaller, times when you
want to make them bigger. But if you're going to be making lots of multiples, then this
would be a great time saving device. I hope you found this video helpful. If you
liked it, please make sure you've subscribed to my YouTube channel so you'll see more like
it. Also, click the Like button and check out my blog at KeepsakeCrafts.net where I
have lots more creative ideas and inspiration. Up on the screen are videos for two pieces
of jewelry that use lots of simple loops and the 1 Step Looper would be very handy for
that, indeed. So happy creating. Bye, bye.