Thing-a-ma-jigs

Today I finally broke down and bought myself that Thing-a-ma-jig I've been wanting.  Literally. :)

What is it?  A jewelry maker's best friend.  One of my very favorite things about making jewelry is making cool, funky designs with wire.  Almost every pair of earrings I've made so far has some kind of wire design incorporated, even if it's just a small curli-que {technical term} at the bottom.  The trouble is, it's very very very difficult to make freehand wire working look at all symmetrical.  I'd make one earring and it would look awesome, then the next one would look nothing like it.  That's where my much-coveted thing-a-ma-jig comes in.  It's basically a metal slab full of holes and it comes with pegs in all different sizes.  You put the pegs in however you want them, secure them from the bottom with little plastic pieces, then wrap your wire around them.  It comes with some pattern ideas, so I tried one of those first.

Here's the setup:

 And here's the wrapping.  I decided to use colored wire so it would stand out from all the other metal and I could see what I was doing!  This is 20 gauge.  I think.

Here are my first two attempts.  You can see that although they're not totally perfectly identical, they're pretty darn close...and when they've got your whole face in between them, no one will ever notice the differences...lol.  I can't imagine what it would look like if I tried to recreate this pattern freehand. Yikes.

Then I tried out my own pattern.  The curli-ques at the bottom are freehanded, and they looked much better before I decided I wanted to add a bead, unbent them, and tried to re-wrap.  Note to self.  Add beads first next time.  Sigh.  Anyway, curli-ques aside, you can see that the wavy part up top is pretty close to the same on both earrings.  Yay, thing-a-ma-jig!  Again, I'd have agonized over that if I tried it on my own.

I know, I know...you're thinking, "Wow!  That's totally groovy!  Where can I get a thing-a-ma-jig?"  I've seen them in several places.  My first sighting was at the super-fun Potomac Bead Company where it was about $25.  Then, I saw it in Michael's for $20.  I had a 40% off coupon for one regular price item at Michael's this week, so you can guess which store won.

 Well, the clock tells me it's time to put my fun new toy away and get dinner started...hubby will be home in 20 minutes or so and I think he'll be much more likely to "ooh" and "aah" over this stuff if I feed him first. :)