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Tutorial Tuesday is a blog series where I share a do-it-yourself jewelry tutorial on Soft Flex Company’s blog.

Just in time for the holidays! This silver and red, long and layered multi-strand candy cane charm necklace is the perfect solution to your holiday outfit. This easy to wear necklace is lightweight and festive and elegant at the same time.

Cut 3 strands of beading wire about 24″ each.String a pattern of alternating long and short silver tube beads for the longest layer.

Next string the middle layer in the following pattern; 3 red crystal beads, 1 double heishi spacer bead, 3 red crystal beads, 1 double heishi spacer bead, 3 red crystal beads, 1 candy cane charm on a jump ring, 3 red crystal beads, 1 candy cane charm on a jump ring, 3 red crystal beads, 1 candy cane charm on a jump ring, 3 red crystal beads, 1 double heishi spacer bead, 3 red crystal beads, 1 double heishi spacer bead, 3 red crystal beads, 1 double heishi spacer bead,3 red crystal beads.

Lastly, string a pattern of alternating barrel and square silver beads for your shortest layer.

Tutorial Tuesday is a blog series where I share a do-it-yourself jewelry tutorial on Soft Flex Company’s blog.

Wrap up these twig inspired wire napkin rings for your Thanksgiving day gathering or gift them as a “thank you” for this year’s holiday hostess!

Cut 40″ of Craft Wire. Use your nylon jaw pliers to smooth out the wire. Wrap wire around the tube 6 times.

Remove from the tube, take the short wire end and using your chain nose pliers wrap the wire tail around one of the loops to secure the ring.

Now use the long wire tail and feed it through the ring. Zig zag the wire up and down adding in two or three beads on every other pass. I found that if my wire was even slightly bent some beads had a hard time passing through. Using my nylon jaw pliers to smooth out the wire before stringing the beads helped in most cases.If you happen to run out of wire, you may easily add more by wrapping the end of a new wire piece around one of the ring wires and then continue zig zagging up and down and adding beads as you were.

 

Continue until you have used most of the wire and wrap the wire end around the ring to secure.

Tutorial Tuesday is a blog series where I share a do-it-yourself jewelry tutorial on Soft Flex Company’s blog.

Super simple, quick and adorable ornament earrings for your holiday gatherings and gifts!

Tutorial Tuesday is a blog series where I share a do-it-yourself jewelry tutorial on Soft Flex Company’s blog.

We all have little groupings of leftover beads from another design, don’t we? I am particularly fond of this mix of seed beads I’ve been holding onto. The enjoy the bright playful colors together and decided to finally put them to use in these earrings. 

This design is also great for using leftover Soft Flex beading wire clippings. I have a bag of beading wire remnants that I hold onto for small projects such as this. I found two 6″ strands of Tanzanite beading wire in my stash that paired well with this design. The Tanzanite color reminds me of denim and because of that it feels like a “go with anything” neutral color to me. Do you agree? 

Look through your beading wire remnants stash and find two 6″ strands. I used Soft Flex beading wire in Tanzanite but, for this design you can use just about any color you have. 

Clip a bead stopper to one end of  your beading wire strand to keep your beads from slipping. String a crimp tube, 16 seed beads and another crimp tube.

If you are using open jump rings, use your chain nose pliers to close both of them.

Then, one end at a time, wrap your beading wire around one of your jump rings and back through the crimp tube. Once you have both ends around the jump ring and through the crimp tubes you may adjust the size of your loop.

When you are happy with the shape, crimp the crimp tubes using the Magical Crimper or Regular Crimping Pliers. (I used the Magical Crimper to turn the crimp tube into a 2mm bead.)

Once crimped securely, cut off your excess wire and using chain nose pliers, attach to your ear wire to the jump ring. Repeat for the second earring.

Tutorial Tuesday is a blog series where I share a do-it-yourself jewelry tutorial on Soft Flex Company’s blog.

I have confessed my love for knitting bracelets out of Soft Flex Beading Wire before but, knitting with Soft Flex Craft Wire proved to be more difficult for me to grasp. I believe that’s because I first  learned to knit on a spool using flexible beading wire, which has give to it. Craft Wire is of course, rigid by nature. I struggled a few times and finally decided I would make it work. (Thank you for that gem of a saying, Tim Gunn.)

I found this video by Beaducation on YouTube that made knitting with Craft Wire finally click and make sense for me.It helped me see that with craft wire you pull the wire out to the edge of your spool with your stylus, then flip the wire up and over your pin with your fingers.The tension is carried from one pin to the next – not through pulling on the tail as it is with flexible beading wire.

Once you have completed your desired length of wire knitting, cut off about 2″ extra wire form the spool and carefully remove your knitted wire tube from the spool. Take the end of the wire and thread it into the last 5 open loops to secure your knitted tube. The result will be a wonky shape as shown.

Using a draw plate, run your knitted wire tube through one of the large holes to begin smoothing out the shape. Then move to a smaller hole and so on until you are happy with the wire shapes and diameter.

Next, you’ll need to finish off your wire ends. You may choose to use a cone or bead cap or you can wire wrap your own cones as I did. To wire wrap your cones, cut a 10″ piece of 20 Gauge Bronze Craft Wire (it’s better to error on the side of too much length then not enough).  About 1/2″ from the green knitted tube end, stick one end of the bronze wire through the knitted tube and tuck it around the knitted tube to secure it. Then begin wire wrapping the tube towards the end. When you get to the end of the knitted tube, use your round nose pliers to create a loop and then wire wrapped back down the tube to where you started making sure to cover the tube entirely with wire and cut off excess. Repeat on the other side.

At this point you can add you jump rings and clasp or you can make your own. I decided to make a simple hook clasp to finish off my bracelet. Cut 2-3″ of 20 Gauge Bronze Craft Wire and straighten the wire with nylon jaw pliers.

Using my round nose pliers I made a small loop on one end and then made a larger loop with my large bail making Wubbers pliers.Trim excess wire so it’s about the same length as the little loop.

Lastly, work harden the clasp with a nylon hammer and rubber block and attach to one end of your bracelet. Here is the finished design. I especially like to wear it layered!