I’ve been loving the trend lately of the really dominant necklaces. I haven’t found a bib necklace that worked on me yet, so I’ve been following the “dripping with beads” trend. Bear’s grandmother left me a ton of these jet black beads, but they’ve been sitting in my drawer for years. In my necklace making marathon, I decided it was time to address it.
Each of these strands is secured on to one clasp using a crimp bead. This clasp is made for a three strand necklace, but I snuck in a fourth by tying two strands to one of the loops.
I made another necklace in the same style using these crazy white beads I found. They’re enormous, and remind me of Wilma Flintstone. I can’t quite decide if I love it like crazy or think it’s a little ugly. It’s a fine line sometimes.
While it doesn’t use a crimp bead, I wanted to share this necklace here too. It’s another tiered necklace like the others, but this one is light weight so I could get away with just using knots.
The strands are tied together and then threaded through the cone,then tied around the clasp, and the unpleasant ends are threaded back into the cone. The cone doesn’t offer any strength or anything, but it hides all those ugly knots securing everything together. Whenever I just use knots I always make sure to reinforce it with glue.
Now back to the crimp beads. These are really excellent for securing just about anything onto a jump ring, which can then be secured onto a clasp. This is especially invaluable when you use something like tiger tail which is super strong, but impossible to tie knots in.
Thread your crimp bead onto your fishing line.
Then thread the clasp or jump ring you’re securing your line to.
Bend the end of your line around and thread it back through the crimp bead.
Then pull the line tight and crimp the bead closed with pliers.
This is usually the first lesson I give to beginning jewelry makers. It’s the easiest thing to learn for the fastest payoff of fun jewelry.
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