jewelry Archives - ReveDreams.com

Excessive adornment

If you’ve ever thought I go over the top with my projects, you should have met me in college. I present as evidence the set of beaded accessories I made for a college dance in February of 1998. This dance was a traditional event at which the third-year women wore white, and I decided to accent with gold and deep red. I had a dark red capelet with my dress, which gave me a bit of a Little Red Riding Hood look, and a little beaded bag. I went all-out with jewelry, making a necklace, earrings, bracelet, and anklet, and beading my white Isotoner slippers. If instead of slippers I’d had furry boots, and a heavy cloak on top of it all, I could have fulfilled all my Snow Queen fantasies!

At the time I was interested in bead weaving, and the necklace, bracelet, and anklet are all more or less woven. The bag is sewn, but with a woven look, short spans of beads connecting zigzags of decorative cord to make a flat face. I lined it with leftover fabric from my dress (of course I made the dress).

My style nowadays is more reserved, even for dressy occasions, though the saying “once a costumer, always a costumer” certainly still applies. Have you even gone over the top decking yourself out?

Beaded Bobby Pins

The last in the series of beading patterns from my distant past.

For a while I had a haircut that looked good with bobby pins, and I started collecting interesting pins to wear. It didn’t take long to start coming up with my own. For each pin you need an 8-10″ length of 32-gauge wire (less if you are skilled at working with wire; they don’t take nearly that much, it’s just hard to manipulate much less), a bobby pin, and epoxy. Gorilla glue or similar should work in place of epoxy, although be careful not to use much since it expands as it sets.

For the 5-point star: 10 small seed beads.
Make a bend in the wire about 1.5″ in from the end. String a bead onto that bend and take both ends of the wire through a second bead. *String two beads onto the longer end and take the wire back through the first of the two* four times for a total of 5 points (see diagram below left). Twist wire ends together. Wire to bobby pin, trim ends, secure with epoxy.

For the diamond: 4 bugle beads, 1 large rocaille.
String 4 bugles on wire and loop one end back through the farthest 2 bugles to form a closed diamond with the wire ends sticking out at opposite points. Pull taut and pass the wire ends through the rocaille from opposite directions (see diagram above right). Wire to bobby pin, trim ends, and secure with epoxy.

With the bobby pins in the photo are two beaded combs; at times my hair is a good length for those. I didn’t wrap the thread in the same way on each, but on both each bead is secured by two separate stitches.

Garland necklace

Another in the series of beading patterns from my distant past.

I was in love with some cranberry-colored beads, smooth and gleaming, with some internal shimmer like opals. I had only a few. This is what I came up with to display them, calling them “focus beads.” They are 8mm in diameter and the necklace is about 17 1/2 inches long. If your facet beads are light, you’ll want heavy focus beads to get the necklace to lie nicely.

Materials:
at least 45″ beading thread
123 5mm facet beads (black in sample)
5 focus beads (cranberry in sample)
clasp

Tie one half of the clasp to the middle of the beading thread. On both strands, thread
36 facet beads
focus bead

On one strand, continue as follows:
6 facet beads
focus bead
9 facet beads
focus bead
6 facet beads
focus bead
36 facet beads

Attach other half of clasp to this strand but leave the loose end dangling.

The second strand will share the focus beads and the final 36 facets with the first, but have more facets in between the focus beads to form the drops. It is threaded as follows:
9 facet beads
second focus bead above
6 facet beads
unused focus bead
6 facet beads
third focus bead above
9 facet beads
fourth focus bead above
final 36 facet beads above

Tie second strand to second side of clasp and run both strands back through final line of facet beads. Trim.