Jewellery making anyone??

BOBS

Dont know about sterling silver in bulk .... but I have found Beads Direct have the best quality (pricewise) for findings..........
Spend last night fiddling making snowflakes with seed beads .... found directions online for a couple of diff patterns .... have never tried anything like this before and was 'quite' pleased with results ... will need some practice .... thought it would be good for the Christmas craft fares (well fare_ I am only doing one so far) .... cheap to make and should sell well .... thought they would be nice hung on the tree.... and if they dont sell can put them on my own tree!

Bead27

I've never really bought silver in bulk (limiting to myself to 10's at time) Beads Direct & Jules Gems have some good prices, but for silver beads try Cooksons. They seam to be good on silver beads, and have a bulk 1000 pieces discounts listed on there site - that seams a lot of beads!http://www.cooksongold.com/Findings/

Angie100

BOBS wrote: »

Dont know about sterling silver in bulk .... but I have found Beads Direct have the best quality (pricewise) for findings..........
Spend last night fiddling making snowflakes with seed beads .... found directions online for a couple of diff patterns .... have never tried anything like this before and was 'quite' pleased with results ... will need some practice .... thought it would be good for the Christmas craft fares (well fare_ I am only doing one so far) .... cheap to make and should sell well .... thought they would be nice hung on the tree.... and if they dont sell can put them on my own tree!

BOBS do u have any links for these, they sound great!!

Thanks

Angiex

Liontamer_2

Hi everyone,

I've been reading through this thread as a bit of a novice, I started making my own earrings but I've moved on to attempting to make my own necklaces and bracelets. Does anyone have any tips for stopping the beads going everywhere while threading? I'm fed up of beads all falling off while making bracelets on stretchy elastic and so far have been using an ingenious method of sticky tape and my knees, and just wondered if there was some easy way to prevent it that I'm missing. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

newlywed

Have you tried one of those snap clips you can buy for sealing food bags?
Like these:http://www.lakeland.co.uk/quick-clips/F/C/storing-preserving-food-bags/product/2895

Or wrap the end of the thread and clip it into an empty bead box?

Or you could put on an "end" bead where you put a bead on temporarily and just go through the bead twice so the thread is kind of wrapped once round the bead.

Then you can slide this off fairly easily later on when you want to finish the piece.

Jo_F

You can also get bead stops, that are like a little spring, and another suggestion is to use a paper clip.

I tend to use the stoppper bead method, where you thread through the beed twice, as mentioned above, and if it's being rather awkward, then a paperclip too.

Also, if it's simple stringing (and not weaving) then I thread straight on to the reel of thread/elastic/wire/whatever. Then once I have finished, I cut from the reel and havent been chasing beads around.

BOBS

Quote:
Originally Posted by BOBS
Dont know about sterling silver in bulk .... but I have found Beads Direct have the best quality (pricewise) for findings..........
Spend last night fiddling making snowflakes with seed beads .... found directions online for a couple of diff patterns .... have never tried anything like this before and was 'quite' pleased with results ... will need some practice .... thought it would be good for the Christmas craft fares (well fare_ I am only doing one so far) .... cheap to make and should sell well .... thought they would be nice hung on the tree.... and if they dont sell can put them on my own tree!

BOBS do u have any links for these, they sound great!!

Thanks

Angiex

Sorry Angie just noticed you had asked me for links for the snowflakes .... here we are ... both are nice
http://kayray.org/crafts/snowflake/
and http://beadwork.about.com/od/freebeadpatternsac/ss/Beade_Snowflake.htm
takes a few attempts to get right what with putting on wrong no of beads and not pulling wire tight enough

Angie100

Thanks BOBS!!

Liontamer_2

Just wanted to say thanks to Newlywed and Jo F for the useful tips, they'll definitely save me pulling my hair out in frustration, thanks!

BabyKat

wow what a lot of lovely things on this thread
I just decided to make some jewellery and bought everything and had a try this weekend
what do you think of my first attempt...i eventually made it into a keyring for my friends xmas

Then i went on to have a try at other phone/key charms

What do you think?
I have also just bought some artisan jewellery kits and plan to have a go at making some other stuff