Beads and Wires

I haven’t posted any thing on this blog for a month! Too busy catching up with things happening in life - work, traveling to and fro KL, brother-in-law’s wedding, work again… I am still busy, as tomorrow I will be traveling again and more work awaits me. But, at least I have a little bit of time to catch my breath now. So, I shall update the projects I’ve accomplished so far.

Won’t go into the details this time, just that they are made using the basic skills learned in the previous projects. May be some day I will come back to explain about these projects when I have time.

So, despite being busy, I managed to put together 2 earrings and 2 bracelets. Here they are.

Materials for the above earrings: Earring hooks, pearl, Swarovski crystals, chain, headpins and T-pins

Materials: Swarovski crystals, plastic beads, love-shaped charm, lobster clasp, chain, headpins and T-pins

Materials: Pearls (white and another color of choice), lobster clasp, chain (for extension), headpins and T-pins. I followed this design from a book, and by right the colored pearls should be bigger than the white ones. That will look better.

What will be my next project? I don’t know. I suppose I can make a pair of earrings to match the pearl bracelet. Let’s see how things go.

Although more complicated than the first earring project, I only have to learn two skills in this project - cutting excess length off of the headpins and eye pins, and making a loop after a pearl or crystal is threaded into the pin.

Bought this earring DIY kit from 1 Utama. Everything needed is in the pack.

It comes with a picture of how the end product should look like. The only instruction it has is on making the loop. As for the rests - the order in which the metal beads and pearls and crystals are put in, when to use headpin or T pin - I had to figure it out myself. It’s good practice though because jewelry making involves designing, estimating the materials you need, and planning the steps of your project ahead before you put your hands onto it.

So this is how my second pair of earrings look like.

I don’t know where to hang the earrings except on my laptop (with a dusty monitor), hehe. An easy project like this hasn’t given me enough practice in making loops. I need to do more to perfect the loop.

To know what headpins and eye pins are, and how to make a loop, visit how-to-make-beaded-jewelry.com. It’s a very useful site that carries almost all the basic information you need to learn about beaded jewelry.

This is my first earring project, just a simple one. Not much of jewelry making skill is required here, merely to get a taste of it.

Only a few things are needed:

• A pair of earring hooks (top right)
• Two pairs of embellishment – purple shell discs & filigree (top left)
• A pair of jump rings (just simple ‘o’-shaped rings that mostly used as connectors between findings and embellishments) (above the purple shells)
• Tools: Flat-nose plier and round-nose plier

Method:

1. Open the jump ring.
2. Put in the shell discs and filigree.
3. Close the jump ring.
4. Loosen the loop of the earring hook. Put in the jump ring with the embellishments.
5. Close back the loop. Done.

My next pair of earrings involves more skills. Find out in the next post.