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

Spring Flower bead tutorial

Finally the weather is getting warmer. Over here in the UK, we’ve been having some beautiful weather in between the showers, and I’m thinking of seasonal beads made in clay. 

Today I’d like to share how I create my Spring flower beads. They are made from ceramic clay, but I think they’d work equally well in polymer if you don’t have access to a kiln.

To start, grab yourself a lump of clay and roll a sausage. 

Cut the sausage in to equal sized pieces. This will help your beads to be roughly the same size.

Roll each piece in to a ball and flatten.

I do this by squashing the ball in the centre and then gently squeezing around the edge to level the clay. This will give you a square edge.

Next you need a chisel ended tool. This is one of my two most used tools for bead making. I never use the other end, but the chisel tip is great for smoothing, shaping and marking your clay.

Press the tool in to the clay at the edge and then roll the tip towards the centre of the bead to make an indent.

Do this at opposite sides around the edge until you have petals.

Flip the bead and putting your tool in the groove from the first side, roll around to the centre again to create petals on the second side.

Take a skewer or your favourite hole making implement. Pierce centrally in between two petals through to the other side so that the point just pokes through the clay. (I find it’s easier to look at the bead edge on while doing this to make sure the skewer goes through level. 

Take out the skewer and pierce from the opposite side to join the first hole and push all the way through. Working like this gives you a neater hole, and also gives you the chance to correct any lining up mistakes from the first poke.

With the bead still on the skewer, take a ball stylus tool and poke a ring of dots in the centre of the flower. Poke another ring inside that, and continue until the centre is filled.

Leave the clay to harden a little and then if there are any cracks around the hole, you can clean these up with a damp paintbrush before leaving to dry completely.

When they are dry, these go in to the kiln for a bisque firing. Next they are glazed, the glaze is wiped from the front surfaces to create a nice contrast and highlight the centres, and they are fired again to full temperature. 

The dotted centres are quite a simple design, but there are lots of different effects you can go for in the middle, add lines, wiggles, more petals, whatever you like to make them your own!

If you’re trying this in polymer, I think you could get some great effects with inks and pastes, and I’d love to see what you create if you try!

Caroline

http://www.blueberribeads.co.uk

Saturday Share: Be Still!

We all have some of these beads in our stash.  You know, these little flower beads that are shaped like shank buttons...flat faces with the hole through the pointy backside?  Or those little blobs of glass with the loop in the back?  We see them and say, "oh, how sweet...they will be perfect in this design! I will wow the country and make a million bucks!"  Then, you start trying to incorporate them and they just. will. not. stay. put!

What usually happens when you try to wire wrap these!

I have taken apart so many pieces trying to get these sort of beads just right.  Sure, you can wire wrap them like charms, but they usually end up facing down, so no one can see their pretty carved faces!

Pretty ceramic charms by Diana P. of Suburban Girl Studios, my torch-fired enamel components, and yes, the evil Czech glass flowers with the hole in the backside!

A couple of days ago I created these earrings and I really wanted to use these little flower beads.  After watching one spin around on the wire, making me dizzy, I had a V8 moment,. Duh!  It dawned on me that I could use a technique I learned long ago...a herringbone wire-wrap.  I have always used it as a decorative technique, but never as a functional one.  I thought I would share it with you today.

Materials needed:
evil bead in question
wire of your choice...1 guage that is strong enough to support your bead, and 1 smaller gauge, flexible enough for wrapping
Flush cutters for close snips

• take desired wire you want your bead to be strung on (I'm using 22g sterling), then take your smaller gauge wire (this is 28g) and start a wrap around the larger wire
• Once you have it wrapped tightly 1 and 1/2 times, trim the small gauge wire and squeeze the end as tightly as possible
• slip your bead onto the wire

• Bring the small gauge wire over the top of the bead and wrap around the wire in an overhand direction
• bring the wire around the other side and wrap around your starting point, also overhand.  
• Continue this pattern until your bead feels secure.  I usually use 3-4 wraps.  As you are wrapping, smooth the wire against the previous wrap, so that is lays nicely and doesn't kink.

• nice and secure!
• depending on how you are using your bead, finish the ends.  Here I have made wrapped connector loops.

Here is one of the cute Unicorne Glass blob beads that I have always frustrated me!  The holes in these are big, so I used 16 gauge sterling and created a ball, then did the same wrap.  I am using 22 g to wrap, so I had to anneal it a bit to make it easier to wrap tightly.  This technique does double duty for this type of bead...decorative and functional.  Keeps the bead in place but still provides a nice frame!

Well, there you have it!  Hope this inspires you to pull out those frustrating beads and give them a second chance!

Happy Saturday!

Melissa Meman
Melismatic Art Jewelry
Art. Life. Love.