Thinking outside the box creatively and trying something new needn’t feel like you’re moving a mountain. I was a bit reluctant to give ribbon a try, but now I’m glad I did.

This necklace is a breeze to make, and once you’re done, you might be inspired to try ribbons of other colors or even multiple color ribbons in one project. Imagine!

But first, let’s start simple. Round up 6 beautiful beads (I’ve used ceramic beads here), a dragonfly pendant, two jump rings, two cord tips (the kind with two metal flaps), a small spool of green ribbon, a clasp, scissors and chain nose pliers.

On your design board, arrange the beads the way you’ll want them to look on your necklace. Now start stringing your beads.

The spool of ribbon comes with an attached wire needle so you can string the beads pretty easily.

Once your necklace is as long as you want it to be, snip the ribbon at both ends and add a cord tip to each end.

You’ll sort of squish the ribbon together to get it inside the cord tip, and then you’ll fold in one flap of the cord tip, then the other. Be sure it’s nice and snug, and cut off any excess ribbon you don’t need. Attach a jump ring to both cord tips and attach those jump rings to your clasp ends and you’re finished! See? Now, aren’t you glad you tried something new?

The beads in this necklace caught my eye because I liked the unique way they moved on the bead strand; I thought it created a look of depth and texture and, with this deep olive color, a look of warmth, as well.

This is a simple project that calls for very basic skills; you’ll only need a good dose of patience for stringing these wonderful little beads. Round up your wire cutters (or nail clippers) for snipping, chain-nose pliers, crimping pliers and round-nose pliers. Also grab gold beading wire, gold crimp beads, two headpins, two ear-wires, a sleek gold clasp (I found a great one for this), and you’re ready to go.

I really like the simplicity and continuity of this necklace. When I paired the green disks with the small gold beads, I knew I didn’t want to clutter the look further, so I kept it simple. String your beading wire through your crimp bead, then through the eye of one half of your clasp; bring it back down through your crimp bead, pull the wire taut and use your crimping pliers to crimp the crimp bead. String on your beads in a 4-green-1-gold sequence, until your necklace is as long as you want it to be, and then finish your necklace the same way you started, adding the other half of your clasp.

For your earrings, you’ll string your beads on the headpins in the same 4-green-1-gold sequence, repeating the sequence once and then making a loop at the end of your headpins and connecting them to your ear-wires. Simple, stylish and fresh. Enjoy!

Face it, blue is just a great color — versatile and cheery, it’s a color that’s hard to grow tired of. I knew at once when I spotted these heart-shaped glass beads that they’d make great earrings.

Round up your tools: wire-cutters, chain-nose pliers and round nose pliers. Also grab two silver ear wires, four silver eye-pins, four silver spacers, your heart shaped beads and two deep blue, round glass beads.

On an eye-pin put a silver spacer, a round, blue bead, then another silver spacer. Make a loop at the top end and connect it to your ear-wire. On another eye-pin, put your heart-shaped bead, make a loop at the top, but before you close the loop, bring it through the bottom eye of the segment you just completed. Once you’ve done that, close the loop and repeat the process for the second earring. Enjoy!

I really enjoy wearing white in the spring and summer. It goes with everything and brings out the depth of my skin tone. To me, silver paired with white is a natural combination — understated, yet classic. These earrings are fun to make, but even more fun to wear! They are light, unobtrusive and easy on the eyes.

Round up your earring-making necessities: wire-cutters, chain-nose pliers, round-nose pliers, ear-wires, eye-pins, and 3mm jump rings. You’ll also need 4mm round, white beads, 2mm round, silver beads, silver spacers with a bit of an antique flair, and flat beads with an oval shaped white portion set in silver.

Put your 4mm white bead and your 2mm silver bead on an eye pin. Make a loop at the end, bringing the wire through the bottom of the ear-wire before closing it. Put your antique silver bead on an eye-pin, make a loop at the top, and then close it. Now use a 3mm jump ring to connect the top of this segment to the bottom of the previous segment. Now take a 3mm jump ring and bring it through the eye of your white-set-in-silver bead. Before you close that jump ring, bring it through the bottom eye of your previous segment. Repeat the process for your second earring and you’re done! Enjoy!

As promised, here’s a cool and breezy bracelet to accompany your Ocean Breeze earrings we made last week. This one will challenge your skills a little, but nothing you can’t handle, I’m sure. Still, I hope you had a good night’s sleep!

Okay, let’s get started. Round up your tools: chain-nose pliers, round-nose pliers and wire-cutters. You’re also going to need a small handful of silver headpins, and silver jump rings — a few square ones, but a good number of round ones (smaller ones and larger ones), a lobster clasp, and a good mixture of beads — blue and purple Swarovski crystals, glass beads in various shades of blue and, of course, more of those lovely lampwork beads that were in last week’s earrings.

Here’s what our objective is: we want to connect all our beads together using the jump rings and head pins. We’ll then add additional beads to the larger, round jump rings, once we have the main structure assembled. Trust me, it will be fun.

First things first: I recommend getting the more challenging stuff done first, and then you can relax a little.
So, let’s start with some wire twisting. Your smallest beads will be the ones that will dangle from the jump rings, and we’re going to use the head pins to wrap them, so they will really stand out. Get all your small beads onto headpins, and make a loop in it, but leave an extended tail, as shown.

Gripping the eye of the pin firmly with your chain-nose pliers, wrap the tail around the bead, away from your body, as shown.


Snip off the excess wire, snipping as close to the bead as possible and, using your chain-nose pliers, press the wire in firmly against the bead.

Once you’ve done that with all of your small beads, set this group of wire-wrapped beads aside.

Next we’ll make double eye-pins for our larger beads, using headpins. Well, sort of. We’re going to snip off the ‘heads’ of the headpins we’ll use in this segment of the bracelet. Once that’s done, we’re left with a small piece of wire.Make a loop at one end, slide your bead on and make a loop of equal size at the other end, adjusting for size, as needed, and snipping off any wire you don’t need. Now, put the beaded double eye-pins aside. Finally, we can start connecting!

Let’s go ahead and connect the clasp to a beaded double eye-pin using a smaller, round jump ring. Now, begin opening your larger, round jump rings, and connecting the beaded double eye-pins to them. Continue with this until all your beaded double eye-pins are connected by way of the larger, round jump rings.

Once that phase is done, you’ll go back to your wire-wrapped smaller beads and, using your smaller, round jump rings and your square jump rings, you’ll begin to connect these beads to the larger, round jump rings using two crystals and one glass bead on each of the large jump rings. You’ll use a beaded double eye-pin and connect it to a wire-wrapped crystal bead (both of which hang from a larger jump ring), as a tail that will hang down decoratively once the bracelet is fastened. This bracelet is adjustable. too! The lobster clasp can connect to any jump ring for the best fit. Enjoy!

These cool and breezy earrings are a warm weather delight you’re sure to enjoy all year round, and they’re as simple to make as they are pretty!

Round up: chain-nose pliers, round-nose pliers, wire cutters, two earwires, four 10mm jump rings, four eyepins, eight headpins, two blue faceted glass beads, two turquoise swirled lampwork beads and eight blue Swarovski crystals.

First, prepare all your crystals by threading them onto headpins, snipping away unnecessary excess, and putting a loop at the end of each. Set these aside. Put your blue glass beads and your lampwork beads onto their respective eyepins. Got it? Good. Now you’re ready for action.

Open your first jump ring and put it through the eye of your earwire. While the jump ring is still open, slip the blue glass bead onto it, and close your jump ring. Open your second jump ring and put it through the bottom eye of the blue bead’s eyepin. While the jump ring is still open, slide on two crystals, the lampwork bead, then two more crystals. Close your jump ring, repeat the process for your second earring and you’re done! Next week we’ll make a bracelet to match. Enjoy!

Artsy meets sophisticated in this simple but unique bracelet and earring set. Let’s try it on for size!

First, let’s round up our usual tools: wire cutters or nail clippers, chain-nose pliers, round-nose pliers and crimping pliers. You’ll need your beading wire, crimp beads, a unique toggle clasp, gold-colored round glass beads (small) and ceramic beads in 2 or 3 shapes and sizes. Also grab gold earwires and eyepins for your earrings.

With this set, placement of the beads is key. The larger, bolder beads gathered together in the front really make a statement, whether you’re creating a necklace or a bracelet. Keep that in mind as you string your beads on the beading wire. Alternate with the other ceramic beads and the small, round glass beads, which make a fine and subtle supporting cast to these unique ceramic beads which seem to have a language all their own. Be careful not to pull the wire too tightly when finishing with your clasp, as the bracelet will be stiff. A little slack when you’re adding your last crimp bead will help the bracelet move a bit more freely.

The narrow ceramic beads work well for the earrings; they are just enough. Anything more might be too heavy. Add these and the small round beads to your eyepins, make a loop at the ends and add them to your ear wires. Nothing speaks so well as one-of-a-kind ceramic beads, which I’ve really come to enjoy. Have fun!

It happens. You’re in a good groove beading a project, and all is well with the world until — snap! — a glass bead cracks. You’re wondering, “How on earth did that happen?” and the project that was going so smoothly just went belly up.

I understand the frustration. It’s happened to me on more than one occasion and, admittedly, it left me wondering about the quality of the beads I was using.

In a recent blog post, Cindy Gimbrone (a.k.a. Lampwork Diva) addresses this very real concern of beaders. As a maker of glass beads, Cindy warns against craft store glass beads that haven’t been kiln annealed. Kiln annealing is a process whereby glass is strengthened by being cooled very, very slowly. The absence of kiln annealing in the bead making process makes for weaker beads that are more susceptible to cracking. Check out Cindy’s blog to learn more about shopping for good quality glass beads. And just so you know that a quality bead on a budget isn’t a contradiction in terms, snoop around Cindy’s blog a bit. She’s also recently started a series on beading on a budget, and what savvy beader couldn’t use that? Happy beading!

It’s easy to find inspiration in the emerging beauty of spring, and it’s fun to think of all the colorful creations you can whip up with a little bit of effort and a few materials! Let’s get started on a spring jewelry project you’re sure to enjoy.

Round up your usual materials: Beading wire, crimp beads, 3-strand clasp, crimping pliers, chain-nose pliers, wire cutters or a nail clipper (for snipping), and your beads: blue glass beads in both a light and a dark shade, and a couple of different shapes and sizes. You’ll also need several Swarovski crystals — maybe 12-20; you can mix up the sizes and shapes, as long as they are the same color.

This project will be a three strand floating design, so you’ll want to figure out how long you want your necklace to be. For floating designs, I like my necklaces to be shorter. Lay out your beads on your design board in the order you’d like to see them in on your necklace. Be sure to space out your light and dark blue beads well for balance. Intersperse your crystals well with the glass beads, too.

With this three strand design you can opt for strands of varying lengths (usually increasing in length from shortest to longest) or you can go for strands of equal lengths. Sometimes I just figure it out as I go along, and this necklace seemed to be (oddly!) a mixture of the two options.

Once you’ve cut your beading wire, thread your three strands through the clasp (you can thread and work on one strand at a time, if it’s easier). Spacing is everything with this design. If it helps, you can measure the distance between each bead. I’ve done that before, and it’s a bit of a headache, so now I usually just measure visually (it’s probably less precise, but it usually still turns out okay). You’ll also want each strand to look different from the other strands. For example, one strand may have more dark blue beads than another strand, while another strand has a few more crystals. You get the idea. If you’re in the mood, you can even vary the spacing between beads on each strand.

Once you’ve determined the spacing you’ll want between the beads on all your strands, you’ll begin adding your beads onto the strands. Add a crimp bead, a glass bead or crystal, then another crimp bead. Once you calculate your spacing, you’ll add another crimp bead, glass bead or crystal, then another crimp bead. This pattern will continue on till you reach the end of your strands, then you’ll thread the ends of your wire through the other half of your clasp. You can vary this look by adding beads of a different color, or trying a combination of two or three colors. Enjoy!

The study in our home is my personal space and it’s also the smallest room in the house. My L-shaped desk and the bookcase take up most of the space, which means the floor space between the desk and the bookcase is my jewelry making workspace. Correction — was!

Until very recently I was killing my back by spreading all my jewelry making materials on the floor, and working there. It was the best space I could find. But recently I stumbled upon an unlikely solution to my poor workspace dilemma: a desktop hutch. I never would have imagined such a thing would suit my purposes so perfectly! Once assembled, the hutch stands alone on the floor (instead of being attached into place atop a coordinating desk). The various compartments (and their respective sizes) give ample space for my accumulating assortment of beads, findings and stringing materials. My wire and tools are stored in plastic bins beneath the hutch. The hutch measures almost four feet across, which is plenty of room for me to spread out as I work. It also fits pretty well against my back wall with the windows. You might be wondering why you don’t see a chair; it’s because I prefer to stand as I work.

What are some unlikely workspace solutions you’ve found that work for you? What makes your space unique?