Make your own bead jewelry

Welcome!

Helping the beginner to intermediate beader with beading tips, techniques, instruction, free bead patterns and project ideas on beadwork and wire wrapping used in making bead jewelry such as bracelets, necklaces, earrings and ornaments. I have added a lot more pattern instructions to my bead necklace pages.

By popular demand I have started offering some of the bead patterns in the form of Bead Jewelry Kits, I have started listing some here.

Tip of the month click for past tips

This one is hard on the fingers! I created this as a copy of a similar one I saw in a store; the design is fairly common and is created with 26 gauge wire and silver lined 6/0 sized clear beads (such as the one on the home page) - or green and red beads for a true "wreath" look. The forms are 16 gauge wire soldered at the connection (something similar to metal shower rings might also work), with a large jump ring attached at the top for hanging.

1. Start this project by stringing a large amount of beads onto the wire while still keeping the wire attached to it's spool (Photo A). Depending on the size of the wreath form, you will add more or less beads, but to give you an idea of how many to use, my form is about 2" in diameter so I used approximately 100 beads (Photo B).

Tip: To save time, put the beads in your hand and string them by spearing them with the wire.

Photo A

Photo B

2. Bend the wire around a bead (Photo C), then twist the bead into the wire chain nose pliers (Photo D) to form about a 1/2" long twist for each bead.

Photo C

Photo D

3. Continue with this process (Photo E) until all of the beads are used. Don't worry about having what seems like a lot of beads, it will fill in the wreath. Once all the beads are strung (Photo F), snip the wire a few inches from the last bead. You will use this extra wire to secure the beginning and end of the bead "chain" to the wreath form.

Photo E

Photo F

4. I wrapped the bead chain and the individual bead twists to the wreath form all the way around (Photo G) and secured the jump ring with the untwisted end of the wire (Photo H). Make sure that your beads are arranged so as not to leave blank spaces.

Photo G

Photo H

5. Tie a ribbon to the jump ring loop at the top to finish.

If you have bead patterns of your own that you would like to share on this website, click on my feedback page and let me know!