Triple Chain Beaded Necklace

This stylish and colorful three-chain necklace delivers three times the wow, and with a little patience and good bead selection, you’ll be proud to say you made this piece!

To start, you’ll need three different types of silver or gold chain. Be sure that one of the chain types has large oval links; these links will carry a good part of the weight of the necklace. Choose a colorful array of beads. Here, I’ve chosen purples, aqua, deep blues and multi-colored glass beads.

Arrange the beads on your design board, varying the spacing as you go along.  Once you’ve got your beads where you want them, use 20-gauge wire and put a double eye pin in each bead, placing the bead back in its place after you’ve completed your double eye pin.  Next, figure out how long you’ll want your necklace to be. Remember this is a three-chain design, and the lengths will be staggered so that the second chain will be longer than the first, and the third chain will be longer than the second.

Begin to cut pieces of the three types of chain you’ve chosen, and decide where you want each length of chain to go. Mix it up and use all three (or at least two) of the different chain types on each chain layer. Place your pieces of chain between the beads on your design board. As you near the end of your necklace, be sure to place the large, oval links near the clasp as a joining link that will hold the ends of the chain on both sides of the necklace.

Once this is done, you’re ready to connect the beads to the chain. Here, I’ve used both round and square jump rings to add variety. Open your jump rings and connect them with the beaded double eye pins and the chain. Check as you are doing this, and make any necessary changes, like the removal or addition of links and/or beads.

As you near the end of the necklace, put three jump rings through the final links of the three lengths of beaded chain and connect those jump rings to the large oval link at the end of both sides of the necklace. You can add additional jump rings or other metal pieces, if you’d like, so long as you use one of those for your clasp to connect to. Here, I’ve used a dark colored heart toggle clasp to add color and interest to my finish. The result is a classy and colorful beaded chain I feel pretty good about. This won’t be the quickest project, but it’s well worth the extra effort!

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