Tutorial Tuesday

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

 

Materials:

3mm Square Brass Beads – 50
Soft Flex .019 Diameter Beading Wire in Bone – 10″
2x2mm Gold Filled Crimp Tubes – 8
10mm Gold Plated Jump Ring – 1
4mm Brass Jump Ring – 1
3mm Gold Plated Round Beads – 2
Turquoise Nugget Beads – 6
Gold Plated Toggle Clasp – 1
Magical or Regular Crimping Pliers
Cutters
Bead Stoppers

We’ll start with the necklace cluster dangle. Cut three 6″ pieces of bone Soft Flex beading wire. On each strand, string one gold 2mm crimp tube and one round bone bead. Loop the wire back through the gold 2mm crimp tube and crimp. Cut off excess wire.

Next, string one turquoise nugget bead and one gold cube bead on two strands of the three strands of wire. On the third strand, string a turquoise nugget bead, a gold cube bead, another turquoise nugget bead and another gold cube bead.

Add a gold 2mm crimp tube to each strand. Aligned the longest strand in the middle and two smaller strands on each side. For each strand loop the wire around the 10mm jump ring and back through the crimp tube. Leave a little bone beading wire showing on each strand before crimping for a flexible dangle. For step by step instructions on how to crimp with the magical crimping pliers, click here.

Attach the small 4mm jump ring to the top of the 10mm jump ring.

Now let’s create the necklace. Cut 24″ length of bone Soft Flex beading wire. Place a bead stopper at one end. String 25 gold cube beads, one 3mm gold plated round bead, small 4mm jump ring attached to the dangle you created, one 3mm gold plated round bead and 25 gold cube beads.

Tie a figure 8-knot on one side of the gold beads then remove the bead stopper and tie another figure 8-knot on the other side. (Note: you could also add a gold crimp to each side and crimp the beads in place if you prefer). For step by step instructions on how to tie and 8-knot, click here.

Lastly, figure out your desired length, string a 2mm crimp tube on each wire end. Loop your wire around the toggle and bar clasp on either end, back through the crimp tube and crimp. Cut off excess wire. For step by step instructions on how to crimp with the magical crimping pliers, click here.

For the earrings, create two dangles the same way you created the cluster dangle above. Instead of attaching to a jump ring you attach each strand to a gold plated ear wire.

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

‘Tis the season for a statement necklace to go with your holiday outfit! Tired of the traditional giant jingle bell on a rope? Want to add a little sparkle and pop of color? I think this super simple update on the jingle bell necklace is just the thing to give your holiday a last minute jingle, jangle color burst.

Begin by separating your jingle bell beads into colors. Cut 8″ strand of beading wire from your spool. I chose to use Soft Touch, our premium wire, in this design because of the soft thread like drape you get with it.

String a 2x2mm crimp tube on one side of your wire. Loop your wire back through the crimp tube leaving a small loop and crimp. Cut off excess wire. For step by step instructions on how to crimp with the magical crimping pliers, click here.

String 6 silver, 6 gold, 6 green, 6 purple, 6 silver, 6 blue, 6 pink, 6 gold, 6 pink, 6 blue, 6 silver, 6 purple, 6 green, 6 gold and 6 silver jingle bell beads. String a 2x2mm crimp tube. Loop your wire back through the crimp tube leaving a small loop and crimp. Cut off excess wire.

Measure your chain to your desired length and cut into two lengths. I cut two 9″ of chain. Using your chain nose pliers, open two gold jump rings and attach each chain length to your crimp loops on each end of your jingle bell strand.

Lastly, add a jump ring to each end of the chain and attach your lobster clasp.

With my leftover jingle bell beads and chain, I created another smaller version of this necklace. The smaller version can be worn shorter or pair them together for a double jingle jangle design!

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!

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

One of earth’s loveliest little creatures, the ladybug makes an appearance in this playful ladybug braided bracelet. It’s a perfect accessory to welcome Spring! Skills needed to complete bracelet are braiding and crimping.

Cutters
Chain Nose Pliers
Mini Bead Stoppers

Cut Soft Flex Beading Wire into three 16″ lengths, one black and two red wires. With the black wire positioned in the middle, attach all three wires securely to your bead stopper leaving 2.5″ inch tail for each wire. Begin braiding your wires and whenever a red wire is in the middle add 1 black seed bead. After a couple rows you’ll start to see the pattern emerge and the black wire will look like a wave running through the braid.

Once you have 15 black seed beads throughout your braid, string one ladybug bead (back side first) through all three beading wires keeping the black wire in the middle. Next, string your red bicone bead through the middle black wire and allow the two red wire to wrap around the bicone bead. Now, string all three wires through your second ladybug bead (front side first) so that your ladybug beads are facing one another. Continue your braid pattern on the second side, adding black seed beads to the red wires whenever they are in the middle until you have used the remaining 15 black seed beads. Please another bead stopper on this end to secure the wires.

Using your chain nose pliers, open the 4mm jump rings and attach to each side the toggle clasp. Remove the bead stopper on one side of your bracelet and string a 3mm crimp tube onto all three wires.String  the 4mm jump ring attached to the circle end of your toggle clasp through all three wires and back through the crimp tube. Do not crimp yet. Remove the bead stopper from the other side of your bracelet and string a 3mm crimp tube onto all three wires.String  the 4mm jump ring attached to the bar end of your toggle clasp through all three wires and back through the crimp tube. Do not crimp yet.

Measure your finished bracelet and see if it is the size you desire before crimping. If you need to make the design smaller remove the clasp and crimp and undo a bit of the braid, re-string the crimp and clasp and measure again. If you need to make the design slightly larger you may simply add an extra jump ring to one or both sides of the toggle clasp to easily extended the design.

Once you are happy with the bracelet size, use your Magical Crimpers to close the crimp tube. For crimping instructions, click here. Finally, trim off the excess wire close to the crimp.

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

The shape of the ear wires, low hanging hoops and color scheme give these earrings a modern Mediterranean vibe. I created similar black and pewter earrings awhile ago that I wear all the time. This is project is easy and great for a beginning beaders. Skills required are crimping and wire looping.

For crimping help, please visit our webpage, All about Crimps.

Cut Soft Flex Beading Wire into two 8″ lengths, one for each earring.  String crimp tube, one turquoise fire polish bead, one gold plated spacer bead and one turquoise fire polish bead. Take the other end of the wire make a circle back through the crimp tube for your first loop.

Using the tail that went through the crimp for the loop, string your beads for the second loop. Alternate 1 turquoise fire polish bead and 1 gold plated bead until you have 4 turquoise fire polish beads and 3 gold plated beads.

Take your wire tail and feed it through the crimp tube again making your second loop. Adjust wires until you are happy with size of both loops. When ready, use your Magical  Crimpers to close the crimp tube. For crimping instructions, click here.

Finally, trim off the excess wire close to the crimp. Make your second earring dangle the same way. When making the second earring pay attention to the loop sizes of both loops before crimping.

Now, we’ll make two ear wires. For the ear wires, cute two 3″ lengths of your 20G Craft Wire. Using your Nylon jaw pliers smooth out your wire. Then, create a wire loop on one end of each wire piece with your round nose pliers. Measure your wire piece and at about 1.25″ mark use your chain nose pliers to bend the backward. Trim the wire tails to your desired length.

Using your hammer and block, work harden the loop area and the front facing portion of the wire, then with the bur cup file down the wire end that goes through your ear.

Finally, open your ear wire loops with your chain nose pliers and attach each to your earring dangles.

Here is an alternate design idea. These are the black and pewter earrings I mentioned earlier that I love and wear ALL the time! The design possibilities by simply changing beads and colored wire are endless.

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

Happy Earth Day! Today, I am sharing a simple bracelet design using natural shell beads with a modern twist. The gold filled curved tube elevates the bracelet design and the little bird beads bring in a sweet touch of nature. The birds outside my window have been very chatty lately which has been so nice to listen too throughout the day.

Cut Soft Flex Extreme Flex Beading Wire into three 9″ lengths, one for each bracelet.  Clip a bead stopper on one end and string a 2mm gold filled crimp tube, shell heishi beads, one gold filled curved bar, shell heishi beads and another crimp tube.

Attach a lobster clasp on one end and crimp. Attach a jump ring on the other end and crimp. Trim excess wire. For crimping help, please visit our webpage, All about Crimps.

The bird bead I am using has a vertical hole. I threaded the bird bead onto a head pin. Then using your round nose pliers make a loop. Then wrap the remaining wire around the bottom of the loop formed.

Using your pliers, open the jump ring that you attached to one end of the bracelet and add your bird bead dangle. For how to make a bead dangle instructions, click here.

Repeat steps to create two more bracelets.

Layer a few of these to your wrist and be on trend – see Sara’s post for more trendy stack-able design ideas, here.

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

I love how serendipitous designing jewelry can be. My sister was visiting me last weekend and brought a wire wrapped stone necklace that I made her many years ago. She said she wears it all the time and that a friend of her is always trying to swipe it from her, haha. So, naturally she wanted me to make her friend one. We set off on a shopping trip to find stone slices and because we couldn’t pick just one so, I ended up making 6 new wire wrapped stones!

Today, I’ll share my process with you. Let me start by saying I’m not a expert wire wrapper. I like to try new things and experiment and this project is very much a “go with the flow” idea. Each stone slice is shaped differently so, there is no one way to wrap it. Skills needed for this are wire looping and ability to experiment and play with the wire. Click to learn how to make a wire wrapped loop.

Cut Soft Flex Craft Wire into a 30″ length. I like to have more wire then less to work with so, if you are unsure go a little longer. Use your nylon jaw pliers to smooth out the wire before beginning.

At approximately the half way point on your wire choose a spot to begin your wrap. Now, just play with wire wrapping it up and down and around the stone slice until it feels secure – being mindful to leave about 4-5″ tail of wire to wire wrap your pendant’s loop. I chose a few areas to thread the wire under a wrap as seen below to help secure the stone.When you are close the the end on one tail end wrap it around the closeout wire to finish it.

When you feel close to being done, take your long tail end and position it at the top where you will make your pendant loop. Hold the tail and lightly shake it up and down making sure the stone is secure and there are no areas springing loose. If there is a spot of weakness, you will need to adjust your wire to secure that spot before finishing.

Once secure, and your wire tail is positioned pointing up in the spot where you plan to add your loop, string your silver bead. Then using your round nose pliers create your pendant loop. I made my loop large enough to fit through my chain. Click to learn how to make a wire wrapped loop. Hold your loop with your chain nose pliers and wrap the remaining wire around your loop, the bead and under your bead if you’d like. Cut off any excess wire and tuck in the tail with your chain nose pliers.

Use your chain nose pliers and any place on my wire that was a little wonky I grabbed and gave a small twist. This helped to straighten the wire around my bend and hug the stone tighter. It also give a little extra detail.

Use your chain nose and attach the two ends of your chain to a jump ring. 24″ chain length should be large enough to slide over your head. You may lengthen or shorten the chain and add a clasp instead if you’d like.

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

I know St. Patrick’s Day was last week, but I’m Irish and love the color green so, I wanted to keep the celebration of green going with this necklace design! This time I am using Soft Flex beading wire as a design component. This project appears to be complex but, it is easy and great for any beader. Only skill required is crimping. For crimping help, please visit our webpage, All about Crimps.

Cut Soft Flex Beading Wire into approximately a 10″ length.  String bead frame and take one end of the wire around to make a circle and back through the first bead frame to create a loop. Wiggle this first bead frame to one side of the wire leaving about 1.5″ tail on one end.

Using the longer wire tail string your next bead frame and circle around the frame and back through to create the second loop. Continue stringing bead frame and making a loop until all 5 frames are complete.

Once your bead frame section is complete, use your chain nose pliers to attach the glass rectangles to the beading wire loops with jump rings. You have a little wiggle room to get the bead frame spacing the way you want before crimping. Take a moment to adjust any frames if necessary.

Using your crimping pliers, crimp one side as close to the bead frame as possible. You may use the Regular Crimping Pliers or Universal Magical Crimper to secure the crimp. I choose to use the Universal Magical Crimper as it makes a small 2mm bead out of the tube. For regular crimping instructions, click here. For magical crimper instructions, click here. Trim off the excess wire close to the crimp.

Using your chain nose pliers to attach a jump ring on either side of the fringe section. Cut your chain length in half and attach to each jump ring. Attach the lobster claw clasp to one end and a jump ring to the other end of your chain. You  can also make it adjustable by adding one more jump ring and your optional 2″ length of chain to the back. In the photos below I’m wearing a 18″ chain in the top picture and adjusted it to a 20″ chain in the bottom picture.