making your own adjustable ring base tutorial

 Two weeks ago, Snowmaggedon hit.  It looked like this at my house.

Thousands of people were without power, thankfully we had power, but we were without internet/cable/phone for several days.

Once the snow/ice started to melt, we finally braved the nearest town center and looked like this.

What can I say, we were totally feeling cabin fever.

I had been asked to lead a middle school girls youth group event that Sunday and while I thought I had a week to prepare and get supplies, it ended up snowing and leaving me housebound for the whole week.

Part of our event was going to include making felt flowers to put on rings like this one.

However, I ended up not being able to make it to the store to pick up ring bases, so I made (*) some of my own.

When we finally did make it out to the store, we didn't make it far and ended up at our local Ace Hardware.Did you know they carried wire you can use to make jewelry with?

I settled on this 20 gauge steel wire that was $5.99 for 175 feet.

Before our internet went out, I stumbled upon this tutorial.  However, by the time I needed the tutorial I couldn't access it so I was left trying to remember the steps.  You can refer to this great tutorial here or follow along with me right here.

1. cut your wire about 8 inches long and start bending one end

2. continue to bend your wire making a tight spiral

3. once your spiral is finished, crimp the end

4. hold the spiral in place while you bend the wire around the back side of something round (I used a lipstick tube)

5. once your wire is all the way around, bend the wire back 

6. wrap the wire back around your round something

7. pull your wire around and make the ring round shaping before you cut

8. cut the wire just slightly over where it meets the spiral

9. bend the end over your spiral and crimp into place making sure you don't have any sharp ends

10. enjoy!

*Guess who was better at making rings than I was?

Yep, my handy husband.

So he made a bunch for me

You could wear the ring the way that it is, or you can glue something on to the spiral like this felt rose.

Remember how my handy husband isn't just handy, he's also freakishly good at math?
Well, I had him do the math and find out how much each ring costs to make.
You need 8" of wire for each ring, and there is 175 feet of wire, so each ring ends up costing you about
(wait for it)
2 cents

Not too shabby!