Tools for Chainmaille

You've already got your chain nose and flat nose pliers. These will work just fine to open and close jump rings and create beautiful chainmaille pieces like this:

But you can also purchase a pair of bent nose pliers. If you're going to be working with lots of jump rings, bent nose pliers would probably be a wise purchase.

You can find a pair at my fave website - wire-sculpture.com.

These particular pair are definitely on my wish list!

Click on the picture to find them to purchase.

What on earth is chainmaille jewelry?? I give the rundown here.

Happy Chainmailling! :)

Chainmaille... what??

In my previous post I bragged about my handsome man making chainmaille jewelry. The perfect intro to explaining what on earth chainmaille jewelry is!

In a nutshell, chainmaille (chain mail, chainmail, maille, etc.) jewelry is jump rings interlocked in some creative form of jewelry. It's actually derived from the type of flexible armor made with metal rings. You know, like in Gladiator...

photo credit

It's so fun to make and often a lot easier than it looks! (Often, but not always!)

I must warn you it can be very time consuming. It probably gets a lot quicker as you get the hang of it but I'm not quite there yet. In fact, I've only done a couple chainmaille projects...

Byzantine Bracelet

Chained Black Dangles

Oh, and I almost forgot this one!

Snowflake Necklace

 The husband actually has more experience.

Here's a couple of his creations...

So that's the basics of what chainmaille is. You can find easy kits at your local craft store.

photo credit

And for the jump rings I recommend ordering online. You can order the exact sizes required for whatever pattern you're doing.


Here are a couple places we've ordered from:
Blue Buddha Boutique
The Ring Lord

Look for future posts about chainmaille weaves, tools needed for chainmaille, and how to open and close jump rings! And, of course, a tutorial!