Beadistinctive

Many of us are busy busy busy, and with that, those pretty beads are sitting on the side or in every type of tub/container conceivable, feeling extremely neglected. However, jewellery making doesn’t need to require hour upon hour of your time. So, I’ve got a handful of ideas to help you use up some beads and also create something nice and quickly. These are the sorts of ideas that you can do after a moment of going ‘Noooo! I’ve got no earrings/necklace/etc to match this outfit‘ and knock these up before going out the door!

Today, we are hitting the pendants!

Quick Make Pendants

The first pendant I want to share is actually the one that inspired this post. So first of all, from www.riversidebeads.co.uk, we have these bird cages:

At just 95p, this would make an excellent pendant. All you need are some headpins in the antique silver and some beads to dangle from the rings. Personally, I’d go hot pinks and purples. Of course, if you have better ideas (I’m not caught up on steam punk for example), I’m sure there are a million and one other things you could add to this to make it suit your style

Spoilt Rotten Beads offer a very similar item, theirs is silver though.

Almost all simple charms can make a nice pendant. Proud crafter? Why not try these gorgeous sewing machne charms for a pendant?

If you want something a bit different, I have a personal soft spot for these cameos. I have made a selection of these and they sold very well at my Christmas stall. My favourite is the butterfly:

This particular one is from The Bead Shop.

And of course, just a simple focal bead on a headpin will work! I finish mine with a nice silver daisy spacer and a simple silver ball on the end. Happy days all round!

Well I popped by this evening with a full intention of getting on here, getting up to date and starting my bank of posts again. However, I got shown one single video on YouTube and suddenly it’s 2.5hours later and everything has stopped!
And what video was this? Well have a look:

Trust me, you will look at related videos and get lost in these for far too long!

But I am coming back! It will happen!

Good evening! How are we all? Well the new year is here and the first Christmas of a new business is behind us. It was absolutely manic, but we certainly enjoyed it and hope things continue in a similar fashion!

So with that behind us, now is time to get back in to things again. And with that in mind, I guess a new (and maybe even well maintained) 52 in 2012 should start! I’m going to do the same as last year and start a project a week. I will try to sort this gallery issue on the blog out, but primarily I’ll plonk each project on Facebook.

And finally, what would you like to see from this blog? I want to do more reviews and the usual, however I’d also like to start doing some upcycling. What do you think? I’d really like to do things like show you how to take old jewellery and transform it, but also do things like show you how to take cheap fashion jewellery (Primark and New Look for example), and see how these can be given a unique twist. If you want to see this or anything else, then shout! I want you to enjoy this blog and see things that are of interest to you!

Happy Beading

Well I jumped on the bandwagon and gave a shamballa bracelet a go, using some very sparkly Shamballa Beads.

I have to say, having learnt a new technique, I know what every female is having for their birthday next year! I do love this bracelet and I love how simple (once you’ve mastered a blooming square knot!) this bracelet is, producing such a gorgeous piece at the end.

So the kit was all from Beads Direct. This consists of:

• 7 oh so sparkly Shamballa Beads
• Some acrylic beads (these can either be spacers so you can get more bracelets using fewer Shamballas, or just for the ends of the bracelets)
• Bracelet cord
• Safety pin (important!)

You then need to follow the instructions (also found at Beads Direct) which are as follows:

Shamballa Bracelet Tutorial:

Step 1:

Cut a 40cm piece of Shamballa cord (you could also use waxed cotton cord or leather cord) and tie a knot in one end. Thread on an end bead (we would recommend an 8mm acrylic pearl in your choice of colour or a silver bead F582).

Step 2:

Measure around 10cm from your first knot and tie another knot. Your end bead should now be between both knots. Put a safety pin through this second knot and attach to a bead mat. Position so the end with knots points away from you, and the end with no knots points towards you.

Step 3:

Put a dab of nail varnish on the end of your thread to make threading beads easier. Now cut another piece of Shamballa cord approx. 1m in length. It is always better to overestimate the length to make sure you don’t run out of cord! Find the centre of this cord and tie around your original cord, as close as you can to the pinned knot. 

Step 4:

Tie a square knot. If you haven’t tried square knots before, why not watch our square knot video tutorial on Beads Direct TV. You might want to practice as the square knot is the basis of a shamballa bracelet.

Step 5:

Tie a second square knot, then thread your first shamballa bead on to the middle cord. Bring the other 2 threads around the outside of the bead, then tie another 2 square knots.

Step 6:

Repeat step 5 until you have added approx. 7 beads. Tie 2 square knots after the last bead.

Step 7:

Tie the 2 outer threads together, and add a dab of glue to secure. Thread on another end bead and knot the end of the centre cord approx. 10cm away from the last square knot. When the glue is dry snip off any excess cord.

Step 8:

Take your bracelet off the bead mat and safety pin. Position the bracelet so the loose ends of cord overlap each other. Now cut another 1m piece of cord and tie around both the ends, so your 2 ends take the place of the 1 centre cord you had before.

Step 9:

Tie another 7-9 square knots, but don’t pull too tight as your thread needs to slide through the middle to open and close your bracelet.

Step 10:

Tie the ends of thread together and add some glue to secure, being careful not to get any glue on the cords that go through the centre or your knot may not slide. Cut off any excess cord when the glue is dry and slide to open and close your shamballa bracelet.

Note: If you want to use less beads, just make more knots!

So there you go. These bracelets are, in a word, fab! You definitely need to have a go and see what you find. Obviously you can use other beads if you don’t like the sparkles, so you have even more variety at your finger tips!

Have a go and let me know how it goes!

Today I am suffering with a ridiculous cold! I’m all bunged up and can’t breathe through my nose – usual like.

Anyway, my eyes aren’t up to seed beads, so what do you do craft wise when you are under the wether?

I would love to see some of your creations too, that might cheer me up! So come and post a link to your creations

As a beader, I continually get asked ‘what do you want to for your beading?’ So with that in mind, here are a few goodies to share with people, that do not need beading knowledge (eg bead sizes, needle sizes, wire gauges etc).

Wire Coiling Gizmo
As previously mentioned, I’ve had a few goes with a coiling gizmo to make jewellery. It’s one of those things that opens you up to a whole new idea of jewellery making and is perfect for young and old, beginner and advanced.
Beads Direct – Wire Coiling Gizmo

Bead Storage
A beader can never have too much storage. If you are anything like me, you would do well to have a storage case for travelling. My favourite is the Jewellery Maker storage bag! This goes everywhere with me! And the fact it has so much storage in the shape of the plastic boxes makes it perfect! I keep everything in little grip seal bags and then put them in the boxes. Excellent!
Jewellery Maker Storage Bag

Magazine Subscription
I love my Bead subscription. Bead has such a variety of tutorials and articles and, unlike the American counter-parts (no disrespect to them, I read them too!!), it’s not filled with adverts! It covers all standards of ability too.
Bead magazine subscription

Enjoy!

Well I can finally get blogging again. After another nightmare with Internet, I can finally blog again! So, fingers crossed, I can get back to normal and start showing my creations etc all over again!

Hello! I just stumbled across this tutorial and had to share it. It’s absolutely precious!
The tutorial shows you how to make ‘diamond rings for 2 year olds’. They look fabulous!

The tutorial is from http://erika-shineon.blogspot.com and I look forward to getting home and seeing what else she has to offer!

Colour Trends for Autumn Winter 2011

Now, admittedly, I’m really not a fashion follower… at all! My clothes, I buy because I like them, not because a magazine suggested it was ‘trendy’. However, when it comes to my accessories, I do tend to watch what has come in to fashion and what people like.

Something I do enjoy doing, is taking inspiration from the high street and putting it in to my jewellery creations at home. 9 times out of 10, this inspiration is colour! So with that in mind, I did a little bit of hunting and stumbled over to Pantone for their ‘Colour Trend Report’ (how very formal!) to see what the official word on colour is.

The colour report gives a list of their ‘on trend’ colours. These range from a bright Bamboo, through to a Deep Teal (both in the image on the left), then for those that require a calmer shade, there is Nougat (a bit like the nougaty bit in a Mars bar) through to Quarry (a duck egg blue type colour).

The nice thing about the list mentioned is that there are tonal shades as well as contrasting colours.

So, what have I created in the colours mentioned? Here we go (just excuse the rubbish quality):

ell as mentioned, Beads Direct had an online party to launch their new range of Swarovski Elements Innovations. Now generally, I’m not a Swaro kind of girl, so I was interested to see what the buzz was about. The day consisted of a game/competition almost every hours (they did have a lunch break and a chance to get home… we gave them that much) which had lots of prizes to win and after lunch, there was a Q&A with the Swaro team themselves.

The day itself was really enjoyable. I have made new friends on Facebook from the day, that I wouldn’t have known previously. We even have a new group on Facebook that is for all things beady!

What are Swarovski Elements about?

From my point of view, Swaro Elements are all about adding ‘a bit of bling’ to your piece. But not in a cheap way, in a classy way. Each bead is gorgeously shaped and will easily flow with almost any piece of jewellery you are making. But they would also work so beautifully alone as a pendant. My personal favourite is definitely in the romantic heart shaped beauty

Autumn/Winter might seem far away (or not, listening to the wind howling outside!), but Swarovski Elements like to help you plan your jewellery range in advance. With expert trend predictions and advice, you can’t go wrong using new Swarovski Elements Innovations.  They have a strong focus on colour trends, with the new range including denim blue, antique pink and petrol pearls. Although these are a main focus, there are plenty of other colours besides.

Well that’s my little bit on the new range (which is, of course, available from Beads Direct) and I will share my thoughts further when I get my very exciting prize from one of the competitions!! I am veeeerry excited about that! However, if you can’t wait any longer, why not have a nose at the Swarovski Create Your Style page? That will give you all the details you could ever need!