Beading Basics 101

I thought about it today, and I think that explaining the jewelry making tools might be useful. The tools in the picture below are the only four I use (except on occasion, regular old wire cutters from my husband's tool box).

The dark pink ones are teeny needle-nosed pliers for beads. They're great for opening/closing jump rings (the little round metal loops, there's a couple in the pictures below).

The green ones are the wire cutters. I use them to cut wire and even metal chain for charm bracelets (though I probably shouldn't use them to cut the chain). I once used them to cut memory wire. My advice to you, don't ever use regular wire cutters to cut memory wire... they make special wire cutters for that for a reason.

The light pink ones are crimping shears. They're flat-faced to smash a little metal bead called a crimping bead (I use those in today's necklace) which is used to keep regular beads from sliding off the end of the wire.

The purple ones are rounding shears. They're used to make metal rods/stems rounded by bending the stem around the shears. I'll show you how those work some other time.

For a very simple beads-on-wire necklace start with a crimp bead and a jump loop on a wire of your desired length (cut the wire a little longer to give room for trimming).

Loop the wire back through the crimp bead and use the crimping shears to smash the bead until it's flat.

Slide your beads onto the wire and add another crimping bead and another jump ring at the end. Put the wire back through the crimping bead (I like to slide the wire through some additional beads as well to hide the wire and prevent it from poking me in the back of the neck).

Smash the crimping bead (be careful not to smash the bead next to it too, it could break!). Trim the excess wire with the wire cutters.

Add a clasp (I like to use lobster clasps) and you've got a super-simple beaded necklace!