I got my tool kit box such a long time ago! Sometimes I was even wondering if I should have invested in it at all. It was getting dusty in the storage room, but since we got back from Kurdistan I didn’t have time to work on any other more time-consuming projects, so I decided to pull out the box and see what interesting things could come out of it.

I had never done beading before but I was thinking it couldn’t be so difficult since other people are doing it as well and they are selling lovely pieces in quite successful businesses.

Well, I was wrong… beading is actually quite difficult and now I’m much more impressed with the designs and ideas which I have seen so far. Beaded Jewellery takes some time to make and first of all you need good piece imagination if you want to come up with something interesting and beat the competition.

I decided to start with something simple to get familiar with the tools and types of connections between beads.

My project was: a silver bracelet with a couple of charms (a silver frog and small silver pendant with a purple gem), a chain of purple beads and a chain of silver beads, both made of crystal.

I selected smaller-size jump rings and short double eye-pins.

There are 3 types of tools commonly used to create beaded jewellery. They look like on the photo below: from the left crimping tool, wire cutter and round nose pliers.

First we need to prepare the bigger size beads with double eye-pins. As you can see there is only one eye and we have to create a second one and close the loop with the tools. You need to grab one end and hold it tight and then, using the round nose pliers, grab the other end and strongly twist it around the nose. Depending on the size of your beads you may have to shorten the pin before with the wire cutter. In my situation the pin had the desired length.

It does take some practice to twist the wire and make a good shape of loop. With first few my hands were shaking and the wire was slipping out of the tools. I think it took me at least 5 minutes to make the first one but each next one went much smoother.

Now after creating several beads with pins and eyes we need to connect them between each other using jump rings. When you are trying to open them please don’t pull the ends to the left end right as you will deform the ring. To open it you need to pull it to yourself or away from yourself with one hand only, while the other one holding the ring should stay steady.

Now you can put two beads on it and close the ring making the same motion.

Then add another one, and another one to create a chain of the desired length. Now we need to work with the second chain. I used smaller size crystal balls and added little metal beads in the front and back of them. This time I decided on a different type of connection without jump rings.It was more difficult to work with as you had to add an eye-pin at the end of the chain before closing the previous eye-pin. There was very little room to work with and pliers were slipping from the pin but I managed and the result was as per plan. Now you need to add individual chains to the silver bracelet using jump rings. I used same locker which was already on the silver bracelet but you may need to add one if you are working with beads only.

Then I added my two charms and I could enjoy wearing this jewellery on the same day.