My Next Adventure - Loom Beading

In my never-ending need to *make* something, but not necessarily glass beads, I have decided upon my next lesson - Loom Beading.  I purchased this Rick's Beading Loom from Melinda Orr a long time ago - I mean, a loooooooong time ago, like maybe a year ago? And never even opened it up because there aren't 86 hours in a day.

The idea was that when I had time, and didn't feel like making glass beads, I could string this thing up and get busy making cool bracelets.  I even purchased all the beads from Fusion Beads to make this Alegrado bracelet:

Here are all the beads from the kit - a treasure trove! And I probably have beads that could be substituted for all of these, but you know, buying a kit seems lot easier...

I was perusing the Fusion Beads web site one day, and came across this kit by Glass Garden Beads:

 These are the beads included in this kit, which is a beginner kit and uses Ladder Stitch.

While I'm pretty sure I could handle ladder stitch, to me this would also look good on a loom, and since the project I bought (Alegrado Bracelet) is actually an *Advanced* kit, I thought this might be a better place for me to start!

I also purchased this book from Amazon, Guide to Beading with a Loom by Jamie Cloud Eakin.

I had the idea I wanted to make some bracelets with fiber, and woo hoo, there's a project in the book that will allow me to do that as well!

So, have I started this new project yet?  No.  Because as I mentioned, there are not 86 hours in a day.  My son goes to college at the end of August, so I am thinking with an empty house I may have more time to start loom beading.  I will let you know when I finish my first project!

Susan Kennedy

Flower Headpin Earring Tutorial

I've been making these cute flower headpins for a while now, and while I love to make beads and components, I rarely make jewelry anymore.  I decided I wanted to write a tutorial for something you could make with these!

So of course it took me a while to come up with something, but I really like what I made!  Here is your supply list:

•  pliers
• chainnose pliers
• roundnose pliers
• cutters 

You'll also need the following components:
 

• glass flower headpin
• glass lampwork spacer bead
• czech picasso bead in blue
• copper round
• copper or brass filigree beadcap

First, add the filigree beadcap onto the headpin.  The beadcap is round and this headpin is not, so you'll need to manipulate the beadcap to fit onto the glass part of the headpin.  It's rather simple to do - just use your pliers to gently bend the beadcap onto the glass flower, and then when you've got it going, use your fingers to finish the job! Don't bend too hard with the pliers or you'll mar the beadcap.

Here's what it looks like bent over.  Then the rest is simple - string the beads onto the copper headpin with the lampwork spacer first, then the czech bead, and then the copper round.

Finally, make a wrapped look and add your ear wires and you're done!  I quite like these earrings, they are very summery and nice and solid without being too weighty.

You can find the flower headpins in my etsy store, SueBeads.  I hope you enjoyed this tutorial!

Susan Kennedy

Summer! Flower Disc Bead Earring Tutorial

Since we're all in Summer mode here at AJE, I thought I'd share a tutorial for some earrings I made with my flower disc beads.  I made these beads a while ago, but in a rustic style:

Since then, I've started making them with the glass that I am currently obsessed with (from GG Glass):

What came to mind for me was a tutorial I wrote for a magazine called Bead It Today (August 2013) which has since gone out of publication.

I also referenced this tutorial post by Jenny Davies-Reazor where she made earrings with enameled discs.

In this case I used flower petal beads I had made, and a swarovski crystal heapin to make the design pop.  Today I'll show you my flower disc beads and two designs you can make!

I'm using my red flower disc beads, and two teeny tiny rubber o-ring beads I got from Yvonne at MyELEMENTS on etsy.

I'm also using some awesome headpins I got from our own Jennifer at Glass Addictions.

Add the flower disc bead, then the bumper bead, to the glass headpin.

Using your chain nose pliers, fold the copper wire over, preeeeeeety close to the bumper bead.  The bumper bead is going to help you (hopefully) from breaking any glass in case you tighten too much.

Use your round nose pliers to make a wrapped loop.  In this case, you really only want to wrap about one time, to make the earring hang right.

Then cut the copper wire very close to the loop, making sure not to cut the rubber o-ring - it would be aweful to waste that gorgeous headpin by having to start over!

 Here's what it looks like!  Make sure your heapin and loop on the back are oriented in the right direction - if they aren't, adjust as necessary.

Here's the back - what you're going to do is use your thumbs or your thumb and a plier to push the loop up toward the glass flower bead - using the pliers very gently - and get as close to the glass bead as you can.

Here you can see how the heart design on the headpin and the loop are oriented so that dangle will hang correctly.

 Make another, and add your ear wires!

Here's another quick little tutorial using different beads.

This time, I thought these beads would look good with gold findings.

I started out wanting to use these awesome gold beads, they go so well.  However, I didn't have headpins with a big enough to head to use them, and even though I tried to use a little filigree bead cap (flattened out) it just didn't look right.

So next I got out my gold flower heishe beads, but they were just too small, and I didn't have bigger ones to use.

So, in the end, I decided to use these gold round beads, and they look fine.  However, when I get a chance, I'm going to redo them with those awesome textured gold beads above!

Working in the same fashion as above, add your gold round, the flower disc bead, and the small heishe (that I decided to use as the bumper) to the headpin.

 

And again, in the same manner as above, make your wrapped loop and push the loop up as close to the glass flower disc as possible.  On this set of earrings, it actually works well to put the ear wire in the loop before you push the loop up to the glass flower disc bead.

 

And your finished earrings:

I'm sure you can think of other ways to use these flower disc beads!  You can find them in my SueBeads etsy store, and in some of my trunk shows on FaceBook.  I am also happy to make some on request!

Susan Kennedy

Rear View Mirror Dangle Project

The other day, I was out to breakfast and saw that someone had a really pretty beaded rear view mirror beaded dangle.  It got me thinking that I wanted to make one of those.  I made a few sets of beads, but they didn't really speak to me.  I had an idea to hang a large swarovski crystal on the end, but it didn't really match the beads I made.  So then I just decided to do this:

The reason I did that was, 1. I love my Japanese charm and 2. I love bicone shaped beads right now and 3. I love that glass color!

Here's how I did it!

Gather your supplies:

• Cutters
• Pliers
• Crimpers
• Beading Wire
• Crimp Beads

• Ornament Hanger (directions found HERE)
• Glass Bicone Beads
• Metal Spacers
• Charm

 Add your charm to the beading wire, and crimp in place:

 Add your beads onto the beading wire, they way you want them!

Finish by adding a crimp bead, looping the beading wire through the end loop of the ornament hanger, and then crimping loop!

There you go - another beady thing to do with beads, but not jewelry!

Susan Kennedy