Creative uses for chain and findings in jewelry design

By Shannon L. Brown

Findings and chain are very functional components: A chain suspends a pendant, a clasp closes a bracelet, an ear nut secures an earring, and so on. Right?

Don’t tell that to the designers featured in this article.

When creating a piece of jewelry, try considering the chain and findings as an integral part of your design—not an afterthought. Take a second look at these often utilitarian jewelry elements and imagine what they might become in the grand scheme of a piece.

“I consider chain a design element, not just a functional thing,” says Tracy Gonzales, marketing design assistant at TierraCast in Santa Rosa, California. “It gets the same use of my imagination as any other component does.”

Designer Jamie North of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, offers up options for chain beyond the obvious. “There are three different ways I use chain: embellishment, linkage, and texture,” she says. Small pieces of chain become fringe at the bottom of a piece of jewelry to embellish the design, a station necklace comprising multiple types of chain is used to link beads, and different chains layered together add texture.

In addition to viewing chain as a design element, you can get creative with findings. When conceptualizing a piece, comb through findings catalogs to explore the large range of findings offered, and consider all of them as options for a desired function. Sometimes just using a finding that wasn’t meant for the purpose you are executing can make it interesting. “Try to look at findings in different ways,” says North. “Does it have a hole in it? How can I connect this to that? It’s amazing the interesting possibilities that open up when you start asking yourself ‘what if?’”

The images featured here illustrate creative approaches to incorporating findings and chain into jewelry designs, inspiring you to look anew at these functional components.

 

Bonnie Ogilvie-Apra 
Ogilvie Inc., Morro Bay, California 
For Bonnie Ogilvie-Apra, chain is a key decorative element in her designs. This pendant, which is constructed of a bracelet bar and chain tassels, illustrates how you can transform traditionally functional components into the focal point of a design.

 

Tracy Gonzales
TierraCast, Santa Rosa, California
A utilitarian D-ring, which is traditionally used as an end bar and clasp for a multi-strand beaded bracelet, becomes the central focus of this necklace. Hung upside down from a chain and decorated with three Swarovski crystal beads, it suspends a larger crystal briolette connected by a jump ring and wrapped wire.

 

 

Irit Ehrlich
Irit Design, Malibu, California
A long length of chain brings versatility to this recycled silver necklace with a genuine Roman coin. When worn doubled, the hand-fabricated diamond clasp moves to the forefront and becomes a decorative accent as opposed to a simple functional closure.

 

 

Katie Hacker
Keystone, Indiana
Katie Hacker combines bits of chain, beads, and coiled wire in this necklace. To make the piece look ultra handcrafted, she fashions her own findings from coiled wire, leaving the “S” clasp as a decorative element to be worn at the front of the neck. 

 

 

Jamie North
Calgary, Alberta, Canada

To give the look of layers without too much weight, Jamie North combines many shapes and sizes of link and beaded chain at the front of this necklace, attaching the multiple chains to a larger-link single chain that graduates to complete the look. A decorative hematite heart dangle at the end of the chain makes for a cute detail that can be brought to the front of the neck when the necklace is worn at a shorter length.

 

Yvonne M. Padilla
Rio Grande, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Creative use of findings brings convertibility to this long necklace, which converts into a shorter necklace and bracelet set. By simply designing the necklace with a detachable centerpiece sized correctly for the wrist, designer Yvonne M. Padilla for Rio Grande exemplifies the dexterity of the simple circle hook and eye clasp components. Here, chain in three different metal finishes is interspersed with beads.