Janet Evans - How To Make Jewelry With Beads: An Easy & Complete Step By Step Guide

How To Make Jewelry With Beads

An Easy & Complete Step By Step Guide

Its quite easy to make your own jewelry when you know how. After finishing this book not only will you be able to create unique and stunning jewelry designs for yourself but for others as well.

As youll discover, to make jewelry, you dont need any specialized skills or knowledge in metal work or power tools. If you really want to see your hobby flourish then learning the basics skills and being enthusiastic is all you need. Plus knowing where to look for tools and supplies that arent too expensive can help as well.

By the time youve finished reading this book, youll not only know where to buy what you need, but also learn certain techniques for you to produce some amazing pieces of jewelry.

Within this book are some techniques thatll only take a matter of minutes to master, whilst others may require you to spend a little more time practicing them to achieve the right kinds of results.

From the outset, this book has been designed for those who have never created jewelry before. However by the end youll be an expert in the tools of the trade, the supplies you need and some basic skills you can advance upon over time. Not only that but Ive provided you with some projects you can do to practice youre new found skills on.

For anyone who hasnt tried making jewelry before will find this book extremely useful. Although you may begin by deciding to just make items for friends and family. Dont be too surprised when you start getting others asking you to create pieces for them.

Today theres a huge selection of different beading tools available youll need to make some amazing and beautiful pieces of jewelry.

However these are the essentials:

With these pliers youre going to find bending the wire and making loops a lot easier. Of all the tools you need to invest in for making any jewelry, youll find this is the tool youll be using the most often. Its important that the round nose pliers you purchase arent the standard DIY kind but those specifically designed for making jewelry, as they are much smaller.

These are useful in many different ways, not only will use these pliers to hold your pieces as you work on them but also for when you need to open or close jump rings or links in a chain. These two pliers do pretty much the same job if you need to get into tight spaces. In fact if you cannot decide which pair you should be investing in, Id highly recommend you start off with a pair of chain nose pliers and then invest in the flat nose ones once your ability begins to improve.

Without a pair of these you wont be able to cut the wire or other materials you use for stringing your jewelry designs together. However if youre going to be using memory wire to make jewelry then investing in a good pair of memory wire cutters is essential.

This tool is one you use to crimp beads and which helps to ensure the beads stay securely in position. It also helps to make sure the rest of the beads and other ornaments used in your design remain in place as well.

Youll need this tool if you intend to do any kind of knotting when making jewelry. Without an awl youll find it very difficult to produce knots that are not only of the same size and shape but also are very tight.

You dont need a very big hammer just one thatll allow you to flatten wire out so it becomes much harder and will in turn help to ensure it keeps its shape much better.

A really good pair of short sharp scissors is crucial when it comes to wanting to make any sort of jewelry. A sharp pair of scissors will ensure when cutting materials such as leather, suede, silk or satin the ends dont become frayed.

Yes these are the same tweezers youd use to pluck your eyebrows at home. A good pair of tweezers proves invaluable when you want to pick up very tiny beads to then thread on to a wire or other stringing material. By holding the beads between the tweezers you can hold them up to the light and see exactly where the hole is through which the wire or other stringing material needs to be threaded.

The measuring stick will be used to make sure you cut the right length of wire or material for making your jewelry pieces with. While the measuring tape is for making sure you know exactly what circumference a persons neck or wrist is whom youre making jewelry for.

As well as having compartments in which various size beads can be stored, this particular piece of equipment also comes with a measuring scale and a groove into which the beads can be placed. Buying a bead board, not only helps to keep beads close to hand when needed but also you can immediately see what size they are.

This is a crucial piece of equipment you need to buy, as youll find threading small or tiny beads on to thin thread can prove difficult. Its best if you invest money in several different size needles.

You may be wondering why you need adhesive to make costume jewelry with. Youll need two forms of adhesive for making jewelry. Youll need a resin based one that allows you to stick china and glass to metal and a strong clear all purpose adhesive for when you want to stick wooden beads, for example, on to materials such as leather or other fabric types.

When it comes to working with wire you may find using pliers alone difficult and thats why buying a wire jig should be considered. These jigs (boards) tend to be made from aluminium, wood or some transparent plastic in which small holes have been drilled. You can then place pins into the holes, which allow you to bend the wire around them to make your designs.