It seems like a small thing, and actually, jump rings are pretty small normally has far as their size, but they always seem to have a big job when it comes to connecting the parts and pieces of your jewelry.

When I was designing projects for my metal clay book and DVD a few months ago, one method I struggled with from time to time was getting a bail or some kind of connection into the clay correctly. Sometimes the clay would be too thick, sometimes not thick enough, so it took some time to find a perfect thickness, and of course, this would vary some depending on what exactly I was attempting to design. I had the added issue of working exclusively with low-fire clay (since that was the focus of the book), so I had to keep my components fairly small. Super thick clay pieces weren’t going to work too well for what I was trying to do.

Eventually, thanks to the folks at Metal Clay Findings (a company who specializes in creating fine silver findings for metal clay artists), I discovered embedded jump rings, and the “duh” light went on. I guess I’m not the only metal clay-er that loves these super easy to use jump rings because they have recently expanded their embedded jump ring line to include a larger size. They are 25% larger than the original ones (4mm) I used for my book and are 5.25mm in diameter. This larger size is nice because then if you want to use it for a pendant bail (just as an example) then the ring part is larger and will accommodate thicker chains or other media you may want to string through it.

It’s been pretty cool to watch this company grow from providing only a few simple findings less than a year or so ago to coming out with new products on a regular basis. While I agree that you can make a lot of your own findings for metal clay using fine silver wire, after doing it myself, it is just nice to have another option when you want to concentrate more on working with forming the clay and not so much with the other areas of the design that can sometimes drive you crazy.