The final piece of the tutorial puzzle

Today is Day 3 of 22 days leading up to Earth Day.  It is also the day I finish this tutorial.  To recap, on Day 1, I took a long time finding the best way to cut five soda/pop cans so they would lay flat and be free of burrs.  On Day 2, I used my punches to create decorative pieces from the cans.

Today I've moved to my basement, where I now keep my decorative and recycled wire.

I got the "bright" idea to use the recycled copper.  Not sure what the gauge is, but it's probably about 12 or 14, which is VERY heavy.

Not only was my wire straightener too wimpy for the job, but my hands were put to the test just trying to wind the wire around a pencil.  After trying to cut the wire, I decided to give my hands a rest.

This wire was also not marked, but I suspect it was 16 ga.

It took awhile to wind the wire around the pencil, then cut it from the wire coil.

Then I started cutting each full circle, which became the links.

I did the same for three colors of 20 ga wire, too.

Finally, almost everything had been cut and I was ready to move from the basement to the main floor craft room again.

Once upstairs, I covered the backs of the metal (punched cans) with old nail polish I had been given,

then I assembled the rings and punched pieces.  Finally, I turned the completed assembly into a key chain.

A close up shows what I worked on for three days.  Now I'm going to give my hands and wrists a rest for a day or so.  Although my hands are sore, no fingers were cut and no bandages were needed in the making of this tutorial.  I hope you found this useful.  I'm sure you could adapt this to jewelry, especially earrings, but since I don't wear jewelry, this seemed more practical, especially since most people have keys.

For Day 3, I used utilized (which is my word for 2014) some wire I've had for ages, painted the backs of soda/pop cans with gifted nail polish, and created a key chain.