How to Design Beaded Watches
Making beaded watches is a great way to add a touch of artisan flair to a piece of utilitarian jewelry that is often plain. While it's possible to use premade kits and patterns, the experienced bead crafter may find it more enjoyable to create an original pattern. When designing a beaded watchband, it's important to take into consideration factors of both appearance and physical wear.
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Instructions
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Determine the specifications of your watch. Figure out how the watch is designed to attach to its band, and how you can plan your band to work with these specifications. If your watch has wide metal holes for a band to be threaded through, you have more freedom to create a band from scratch. If your watch has a more specialized strap fitting, you'll need to work with a strap that's already of the right shape and size to fit correctly---and place your bead designs on this strap.
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Figure out how wide you want your band to be. Next to the watch itself, the width may already be determined, but you can make the watch wider or narrower as it tapers away from this point. Bear in mind that generally, men's watch straps are wider than women's.
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Choose beads for your design. Consider textures and materials, not only in terms of their appearance but also the way they will feel against skin and how sturdy they will be, since a watch is generally worn a lot and will take more punishment than other beaded jewelry. Also, decide whether you want to use beads of uniform sizes and shapes or whether you want your design to incorporate a variety of beads.
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Come up with a color scheme for your band. Look at the watch face and see if there are any colors that you'll want to work with or will need to avoid clashing with. Consider whether you want your color scheme to be simple, with only a few colors, or more outlandish. Bear in mind that earth tones and dark colors will tend to make for the most versatile watches that can be worn with the widest variety of clothing.
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Create a pattern of beads. The best way to do this is to lay your beads on a flat surface and experiment with different positioning before you weave them together. A carpet or laid-out towel works well for this, as it will keep the beads from rolling away.
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