What is a head pin used for?

Audio Transcript

Note: This audio transcript is auto-generated and may not be completely accurate.
Hi, this is Julie with beadaholique.com if you're new to jewelry making you might have heard these terms but you might not be familiar with what they relate to so I pulled an eye pin here as well as a head pin so you can see a comparison so an eye pin has this eye on the end it's actually an open eye meaning you can open it like a jump ring and Link things to it whether it's another finding a jump ring or even another eye pin you can close it back up so these are great for linking objects together I'm going to put a bead on here and you can see the bead stops right at the edge of the eye but then you're going to be able open that I and connect things to it now in contrast to an eye pin which will form a link there are head pins and head pins are great for creating dangles so you can see here the bead stops at the end and then you could just create a simple wire loop and then connect this to an earring a necklace a bracelet whatever you want and I have a couple examples here showing you I pins and head pins in use so you can get a better idea so here we did a beaded bead and we strung an eye pin through the center and then we connected it to the chain so it allowed us to secure that beaded bead to our necklace over here I have some head pins so here we've used them to create these wonderful little dangles for this pair of earrings and then also with this necklace you can see that we've strung a variety of beads on the head pins and then connected them to the necklace so those are a couple different uses for head pins and I pins but how do you choose to one right one for your project well you're going to look at three different factors you're going to look at the finish the gauge and the length so the finish relates to the color and you're probably going to want to coordinate it with your other findings or your chain if you're using chain you can see it comes in a wide variety of colors and finishes same thing with the eye pins you'll have a lot of variety of colors and finishes so you'll have silver plated gold plated gunmetal copper antique brass and some other ones as well in terms of the length that's going to relate to how long the actual head pin or I pin is and you can see you're going to have quite a few choices so the shorter ones are best if you're just going to string a bead or two on it if you think you're going to string a lot of beads you're going to want a longer one a quick tip is to purchase a mid-sized one like a two-inch one and you can use it for a variety of projects we do that a lot in the design area we keep two inch ones on hand all the time and then the wire gauge is the third aspect you're going to look at wire gauge relates to the thickness of the wire so I'm going to pull two over here so you can see a comparison might be a little hard to tell on camera but one is considerably thinner than the other so in terms of wire gauge the larger the number the thinner the wire so a 20 gauge head pin is going to be thicker than a 24 gauge head pin that also means a 20 gauge head pin is going to be stiffer than a 24 gauge head pin which is quite flexible so you'll want to keep that in mind too if you're going to be using something like a 24 gauge head pin you might want to create wrapped wire loops like you see here for extra security because it is so thin and flexible then if you're using say a 20 gauge head pin a simple wire loop might suffice and that's going to be strong and sturdy for you I know I've used a lot of terms like simple wire loops and wrapped wire loops and we have other videos on beadaholique.com which will show you how to make all of those but I did want to include that information here in this discussion about head pins and I pins and the final thing I want to show you are these little guys and these are screw in I pins if you've heard of that term before and these are great for mixed media projects I'm actually used one right here where it would just screw directly into the cork of this glass bottle which is a fun application because it's suddenly turned this bottle into a pendant you can also use these with bottle caps resin pieces Scrabble tiles a bunch of different mixed media supplies work really well with the screw-in I pins I hope this information gave you a little bit better understanding of head pins and I pins and you can see the entire selection of all the ones we carry at beadaholique.com you

Head pins are one of the most frequently used jewelry findings around and are many a jewelry maker's best pal. Basically, a headpin is a piece of wire with a "head" (stopper) at one end that stops beads from sliding off. Once beads are strung onto your head pin, use jewelry pliers to make either a simple loop or wrapped loop with the remaining length of wire. Head pins allow you to make your own beady charms to add to bracelets, necklaces, earrings, and (let's face it) just about anything else you want to adorn!

Use eye pins to make your own beaded charms and dangles, create links to make rosaries and handmade chain, and to connect separate jewelry components together.

Choose from several sizes, metals and styles of these basic jewelry findings. Keep in mind that the larger the gauge number, the thinner the wire.

• 20-gauge (0.032", 0.813mm) is Heavy
• 21-gauge (0.029", 0.737mm) is Standard diameter
• 22-gauge (0.025", 0.635mm) is Thin
• 24-gauge (0.020", 0.508mm) is Extra Thin