How to Make Designer Crystal Bead Jewelry
You, too, can make beautiful crystal jewelry that looks like it was created by leading designers such as Swarovski. Here's how to pick your design, gather your supplies and create your piece of wearable art.
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Things You'll Need
- Jewelry pliers
- Beading silk
- Beading wire
- Crystal beads
- Clasps
- Chain
- Jewelry findings
- Optional: Necklace layout board
Instructions
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Making Crystal Beads
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First of all, you need to decide upon your design. Look at jewelry websites for inspiration. Fire Mountain Gems not only sells crystal beads and jewelry supplies, but it also has a design library you can browse for ideas. Other places to check out: eBay, Amazon.com and Swarovski Crystal's online jewelry shop.
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Next, gather your supplies. Depending upon the design you've chosen, you'll need different supplies. For a knotted beaded necklace, for example, you will use beading silk, needle-nose pliers, bead tips, beads and a clasp. For earrings, you might use beading wire, earring findings and beads. Good places to buy supplies are Fire Mountain Gems, eBay (which will often have vintage and discontinued crystal beads for sale) and Harlequin Beads, which has one of the largest collections of Swarovski crystal beads online.
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Now, choose your crystal beads carefully. Designers of crystal beads include Swarovski, Preciosa and Jablonec. Swarovski is an Austrian company, while Preciosa and Jablonec are based in the Czech Republic--this is why you'll sometimes hear these types of beads referred to as Austrian and Czech crystal. These beads are often multifaceted and come in shapes from the standard bicone (visualize two triangles stacked with their bottoms together) to stars, teardrops and even something called a cosmic oval.
Assembling Your Jewelry
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Now, begin assembling your piece of jewelry. There are some ways you can make this process easier.
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Buy necklace layout boards from jewelry supply stores and online. These boards have recessed channels that help hold beads, findings and clasps in their correct places while you map out your necklace. They are also marked with measurements, so that you can space your beads precisely and make sure your necklace is the length you've decided it should be. Necklace layout boards come in a variety of shapes and sizes. You can use some of these boards to lay out bracelets and earrings, too.
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Follow a pre-existing jewelry tutorial. Online bead stores such as Shipwreck Beads have video instructions on how to make necklaces and earrings. Fire Mountain Gems' website has video and text/picture tutorials for hundreds of jewelry projects.
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If you're unsure about a particular jewelry-making technique, pick up a book or take a class. To find classes in your area, go to your local bead shops and ask the staff. Shipwreck Beads and Fire Mountain Gems both have lists of recommended beading books on their websites, and Fire Mountain Gems also posts book reviews to help you sort through the thousands of books out there.
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Tips & Warnings
Some crystal beads are covered, on some or all of their facets, with special reflective coatings such as Aurora Borealis or Heliotrope, which makes light bounce off them and create different sparkling color combinations. This means you can have a plain red crystal or a red AB crystal, which is a red crystal coated with Aurora Borealis.
