French Wire Earrings

French wires (Figure 32) are S-shaped hooks that form the backbone of a very popular type of pierced earring. The top loop of the wire fits through the pierced ear, and the bottom part of the loop accommodates any number of gee-gaws and doo-dads. There are an infinite variety of ways to craft French wire earrings. The components, including wires, beads and gemstones, are available from River Gems. The River Gems catalog is a vast compendium of jewelry findings and an absolute necessity for anyone in the business. A companion catalog has thousands of supplies and tools used in the jewelry trade. These two catalogs and a little imagination open the possibility of actually beginning a career in the jewelry trade.

To make the basic French wire earring (Figure 33) from giant clam shells, we recommend starting with T. derasa, T. maxima, T. crocea or T. squamosa shells about 3 to 4 centimeters long. Chemically bleach the shells and grind off the sharp margins on each side so that the shells are more or less oval in shape. Use a 1/16-inch drill bit to make a small hole in the apex of the hinge. Add a 1/8-inch bead of some sort to the base of an earring pin, slide the pin up through the hole in the shell, then add several more beads. Finally, use a small set of needle-nose pliers to form a loop in the top of the pin. Close the loop around the base of the French Wire, and you have an earring ready to wear.

Keep some shells unpainted for customers who prefer “natural” earrings but do use three or four shades of neon spray paint to spray both front and back of the shells. At MMDC, the best sellers were pink, lime green and orange.

Incidentally, customers will sometimes ask how the shells were colored. Never say, “We spray painted them.” Instead, volunteer this:

“The actual formula is proprietary, but I can tell you this: these earrings were triple-coated with neon pigments and polymeric elastomers. The colors will last a lifetime because they're molecularly bonded to the shell.”

This is another way of saying you spray painted them, but it sounds better.

An enormous variety of beads is available for use in making earrings. The beads range from inexpensive chips of glass or shells to gemstones of various types to silver and gold. To get a cheap source of beads for the clam shell earrings, we bought necklaces from Betty's Imports in Honolulu for about a dollar each, then cut the string of the necklace to produce several hundred small shell beads. We also used silver-plated balls, but they were quite a bit more expensive.

Earrings are best displayed on cards, which you can obtain from River Gems or make yourself. The cards may be hung on rotating countertop displays called “spinners” or hung on wooden pegs set into the shop wall, a supporting beam or a wood carving. Many options are available for displaying earrings. Try to choose something that uses local materials and craftsmanship. At the MMDC Gift Shop, we inserted small wooden pegs into locally carved storyboards to create earring displays. This made efficient use of vertical space and allowed the earrings to be placed in high-visibility areas, such as next to the cash register.

French wire earrings retailed for $7.99 to 9.99 at the MMDC Gift Shop, but these were also sold in the Palau Pacific Resort's Duty Free Shop for $14.99. The Duty Free Shop purchased the earrings from us for $5.99 and applied a markup factor of 2.5 to get its retail price. We required Duty Free to order a minimum of $250 to get the wholesale price of $5.99 each.