DIY Leverbacks
I’ve been wanting leverback earrings for awhile now, and with the recent surge in metal prices, I had to look for other ways to get my earrings.
I was doing an eBay search one night and came upon a store, DIY Jewelry Parts, that sells — the name says it all– do-it-yourself jewelry parts. I started browsing and found snap tite leverback components in 14K yellow gold. I also found 6mm bezel dangle settings for round stones, perfect for the pair of 6mm garnets I had been saving. So I bought the leverback parts and the bezel settings.
The parts came in the mail a few days later and I got to work.
The snap tite settings were a cinch to use. You just lay your stones facedown on a flat surface (I laid my stones on some cotton padding for extra protection) and position the prongs over them. Gently push down til you hear the soft click. That’s it! Snap tite settings make it easy for you to make earrings, pendants and rings yourself by snapping gemstones into them.
The bezel settings were a bit more complicated. The bezels had four small tabs in the back to hold the stones in. The stones were placed into the setting from the back and I used my needle nose pliers to gently fold the tabs in to hold the stone. Since the bezel settings were dangles, I attached them to a pair of 14K gold-filled leverback earwires I had lying around, and I had dangly leverback earrings!
You can get these DIY jewelry parts from eBay vendor DIY-jewelry-parts, Fire Mountain Gems, or Jewelry Television.
