Crystal hairclip tutorial

Here is the second tutorial made with the lovely Czech faceted round glass bead mix I received from  The Bead Shop Manchester. (See my product review post for more info or here for the first tutorial.) This is a very picture heavy post so sorry if it takes a while to load.

This make is for a crystal barrette hairclip. For those in the know, its simply a chunky version of flat spiral stitch, but don't worry if you've never heard of this stitch. I'll show you exactly what to do.

 From the mix I used:

8 x 10mm dark blue firepolish

14 x 8mm grey luster firepolish

84 x 4mm montana blue firepolish

I have also used the following additional supplies. You don't have to use exactly what I have used. I'll talk more about options as the tutorial progresses.

80mm barrette/hairclip blank

Strong beading thread or wire (I used 6lb fireline in smoke)

Beading needle if using thread rather than wire

Scissors

Strong glue suitable for gluing fabric onto metal (I used E6000). Not essential but very useful!

Ultrasuede or similar strong non-fraying but easy to stitch into fabric. Not essential.

To begin, cut at least a wingspan of thread. Thread on 2 of the 10mm, 3 of the 4mm, 1 of the 8mm and 3 of the 4mm. Hold these beads near the other end of your thread form your needle but leave a long tail of at least 20cm/8" Pass the needle back through the 2 10mm beads creating a loop, as shown.

Thread on 3 of the 4mm, one of the 8mm and 3 more of the 4mm and once again, pass the needle through the 2 10mm beads. It should look like this.

Add a 10mm bead, 3 of the 4mm, 1 of the 8mm and 3 more of the 4mm. Pass the needle back through large beads 2 and 3. Pull tightly to snug the large beads together. Add 3 of the 4mm, 1 of the 8mm and 3 more of the 4mm and pass the needle through large beads 2 and 3 for a second time. It should look like this.

Add a 10mm bead, 3 of the 4mm, 1 of the 8mm and 3 more of the 4mm. Pass the needle back through large beads 3 and 4. Pull tightly to snug the large beads together. Add 3 of the 4mm, 1 of the 8mm and 3 more of the 4mm and pass the needle through large beads 3 and 4 for a second time. It should now look like this.

Continue adding beads in the same way until your strip of beadwork is long enough for your clip. I ended up using 8 of the 10mm firepolish in total.

You do not need to weave in your ends. These are going to be used to attach the beadwork to the clip. (That is, if you are going to attach the beadwork in the same way as me! You may choose to glue your beadwork onto the hairclip. In which case you will need to weave in your ends. If you are going to glue your beadwork to the clip you will need a really strong glue, suitable for sticking glass to metal.)

There are many ways of attaching beadwork strips to barrette blanks. For this tutorial, I am going to use a fabric covering and stitching but I have in the past used simply glue (not my favourite) or just wrapped and stitched the beadwork directly to the clip. This isn't as tidy but does work. Below is a picture of the underside of a clip I wear quite regularly. The beadwork is a strip of square stitched 4mm glass beads done with cheap fishing line with the fishing line wrapped and stitched directly around the clip. Like I say, I wear it a lot and it is still going strong after a couple of years.

However, for this tutorial I would like to show you a covered clip where the stitching is hidden.

You will find it easier if you disassemble you hairclip. You might find it easier to use pliers for this but I didn't bother as I don't look after my fingernails! Next cut a piece of ultrasuede a little bigger all the way around than you clip, as shown.

Glue the strip of ultrasuede to your barrette blank. You may wish to do this before cutting it out to make your life easier.  Trim the corners and around the clip and hinge bit as shown.

Now you have to stitch the beadwork to the clip whilst simultaneously folding and stitching in the edges of the ultrasuede. Your stitches do not have to be neat on the back as these will be covered up later. I used the thread to stitch together the edges, passed my needle through the ultrasuede at the edge, looped the thread between 2 large beads and stitched back into the edge. Its kind of difficult to describe and photograph but hopefully you get the idea or can find a method that works well for you.

I ran out of thread before I got to the end but this is not a problem due to the long tail I'd left when I began the beadwork. I threaded the needle this side and just stitched it on from the other side. Even if your thread is long enough, I'd advise adding a few stitches from the other end to help secure anyway before fastening of. Here's what it should look like when all stitched together.

Next, cut a strip of ultrasuede to cover your stitches. You can glue this in place or very neatly stitch it. I glued!!

Reassemble your hairclip and you are done!

Flat spiral stitch is a very quick and effective stitch to learn and it can be done with a variety of different sized beads. Long time readers of my blog may remember seeing other hairclips I've made with the same stitch, daintier versions that have 2 or more rows stitched together and done with seed beads and firepolish instead of only firepolish.

I hope you like this second tutorial from the firepolish mix. I'd love to see what you make if you do use it. Drop by my facebook page and post them on my wall or write the link in the comments below so I can come see!

 With regards to the mix, I still have quite a bit left. I don't know if I'll be writing any more tutorials from it at present but I'll let you know if I do.

Gemxxx

As far as tutorial use goes, you are more than welcome to sell what you make using these instructions but please do not copy this tutorial to redistribute/teach without contacting me. If you wish to share my tutorial, then thanks muchly, but please link people to this post. You have my permission to use an image for the purposes of linking to this tutorial only. For any other use, please contact me.

Cluster Earrings Tutorial

Remember my product review post about goodies I received from The Bead Shop Manchester? Well here's the first of at least 2 free tutorials using the yummy Czech faceted round glass bead mix.

Crystal Cluster earrings

In addition to some of the smaller beads from the mix, you will need some headpins, jump rings and a pair of earwires. You will also need some wire cutters, round nosed pliers and chain nosed pliers (or another pair of round nosed would work too).

There are quite a few ways you could adapt this tutorial to make them longer, more cluster-y or more decorative but if you are looking to make exactly what I have then I used:

2 of the 8mm pale luster grey

2 of the 8mm dark blue

4 of the 6mm gunmetal

8 of the 4mm montana blue

8 of the 4mm gunmetal

24 ball ended headpins

4 jumprings (mine are 5mm)

1 pair of earwires

 

You will need to thread each of the beads you are going to use onto a headpin. Use the round nosed pliers to create loops above the beads and trim the excess wire. A fab tutorial for creating even sized loops on your headpins can be found here by Celia of Jencel beads. Here are the beads I used for one of the earrings with their looped headpins.

Open one jumpring, hold it with one of the pairs of pliers and thread on one small blue, a larger gunmetal, the large grey, a large gunmetal and a small blue. Close the jumpring. It should look something like this.

Open a second jumpring and hold it with one of the pairs of pliers. Add a small gunmetal, a small blue, a small gunmetal and the large blue. Next thread on the ring you just made, between the two smaller blue beads. Then thread on a small gunmetal, a small blue and a small gunmetal.

Next comes the fiddly bit! You need to add the earwire and use the second pair of pliers to close the loop.

That's one earring done. Make a second and you have a pair.

If you like longer earrings, you could keep adding more jumprings with more beads on them. They are glass though so the weight could quickly add up if you add too many beads. Another way of adding length would be to add clusters of beads to chain instead.

I hope you like this tutorial and I'd love to see what you make if you do use it. Drop by my facebook page and post them on my wall or write the link in the comments below so I can come see!

As far as tutorial use goes, you are more than welcome to sell what you make using these instructions but please do not copy this tutorial to redistribute/teach without contacting me. If you wish to share my tutorial, then thanks muchly, but please link people to this post. You have my permission to use an image for the purposes of linking to this tutorial only. For any other use, please contact me. 

RAW beaded bead earrings tutorial

I made these earrings earlier this month as part of the OTTBS earring challenge. I was just playing about embellishing right-angle-weave.When I posted them up in the facebook group someone asked about the pattern. I said I'd write it and put it on my blog at some point so here goes! They're easy peasy if you're familiar with the stitch. Hopefully not too tricky if its new to you.

You will need (for 2 earrings- halve them if you only want 1!):

2 x earwires

2 x jumprings (I used 6mm)

12 x 6mm fire polished crystals

6 x 6mm corrugated/fluted metal beads

12 x size 8 seed beads

A sprinkle of size 11 seed beads (I can't be bothered to count how many! As it turns out, a tiny sprinkle more than in the photo below)

Preferred beading thread, thread conditioner, needle

The earrings above are made with AB coated montana blue fire polished crystals, SP corrugated beads and galvanised silver seedies. In the tutorial I am using purple iris fire polish, SP corrugated beads and gunmetal seedies.

Cut and condition some thread. A wingspan of thread should be enough to do both beaded beads although this will depend on how thoroughly you weave in your ends and how long your wingspan is!
Thread one fire polish, one corrugated, one fire polish and one corrugated. Tie into a ring leaving a long enough thread to weave in at the end and then pass the needle through the first two beads you added.

Thread one fire polish, one corrugated and one fire polish. Pass the needle back through the corrugated bead in your first loop that the thread was exiting from in the picture above, to create two rings.

Pass the needle through the first and second beads you added in the step above. Add one fire polish, pass the needle through the 4th bead you added in the first ring (the corrugated one at the end of your row) and add another fire polish.

Pass the needle through the 3rd corrugated bead you added. Basically you have three loops in a triangle.

Pass the needle through the top three fire polished beads, back through a corrugated bead then round the bottom three fire polished beads to strengthen them. Pass the needle through the nearest corrugated bead and add nine size 11s, then through the next corrugated bead in the direction shown. 

Repeat twice more so you have lines of beads between each of the corrugated beads so it looks like this.

Add four beads and pack through the 5th bead in the last set of  nine 11s you just added.

Add four more size 11s and pass the needle through the next corrugated bead to make a cross. Do this twice more to get three crosses around the bead.

You are now going to add the beads on the top and bottom, around the fire polished beads. Thread one size 8, eight size 11s and one size 8. Pass the needle through the next corrugated bead so that the seedies you just added form a semi circle.

Repeat the above step on the other size of the bead but make sure that the bead corrugated you stitch  in is not linked to the semi circle on the other side.

Add one size 8 and four size 11s. Loop the thread round the middle of the semi circle and back through the five beads you just added and the corrugated bead.

The corrugated bead you just passed the needle through will already be linked to a semi circle of seedies on the other side. Pass the needle through the first 8 and the next four size 11s. Add four 11s and an 8 and through the corrugated bead that isn't linked up.

 Basically you're done! Just weave in the ends, tying a few knots as you go. You can go around the thread path to strengthen it if necessary, depending on your tension. Then you just need to add a jumpring and make another.

Here's mine!

Hope this all makes sense (I have a feeling I've waffled a bit!!) and  have fun! I'd love to see what you make with this tutorial! Pop me a link below.

Gemxxx

As far as tutorial use goes, you are more than welcome to sell what you make using these instructions but please do not copy this tutorial to redistribute/teach without contacting me. If you wish to share my tutorial, then thanks muchly, but please link people to this post. You have my permission to use an image for the purposes of linking to this tutorial only. For any other use, please contact me.  

Crystal hoop earrings tutorial

Well, as some of you know, I am currently participating in the Operation Tackle That Bead Stash earring challenge of making a pair of earrings every week for a year. I'm a little behind already (oops) but these are my week 5 earrings. I decided to jazz up a pair of old silver coloured hoops with 3mm fire polished crystals.



They're pretty easy to make so I thought I'd write a tutorial.

You will need:
A pair of hoop earrings- mine are 25mm in diameter
Enough 3mm crystals to go around both earrings- I used 48 in total (they are the lilac mix from RB Beads)
Clear beading thread (I'd recommend fishing braid like Fireline but I didn't have any and the monofilament fishing line I used is holding up fine so far!)
Beading needle

You need to work out how many crystals you need per earring. Lay them out around the hoop to check. Different sized hoops will require a different number of crystals. My hoops are 25mm in diameter and 24 crystals fit around perfectly.

Cut a length of thread, about an armspan length as you'll be using it doubled. This amount should be enough to complete the entire hoop unless they are enormous! Thread both ends through the eye and hook the looped end over the earring.

Thread all the beads you need for one earring onto your thread in the order you'd like. I used 3 different colours in a repeating pattern. Hold the crystals against the earring. Loop the doubled thread under the hoop and pass the needle through the last bead you added.

Loop the thread under the earring again, between the beads, and then go through the next bead. (Red thread path.)

Keep looping the thread under the earring, between the beads, and then go through the next bead until you get to the last bead.

After exiting the last bead, loop the thread under the earring and pass the thread back through all the crystals.

Remove the needle and cross the two threads under the earring and knot them. Cross the threads over the top of the earring and knot again.

Rethread the needle and pass the thread back though several of the beads before cutting the excess. You can add a dab of clear nail polish to the knots if you like.

Repeat for you second earring and you're done :o)

I'd love to see any earrings you make using this tutorial. You can leave me a link here or on my facebook page.
Any questions? I can be contacted via email: gemma[at]damselflygemma[dot]co[dot]uk

If you wish to share this tutorial, you may do so, but please link directly here. Do not publish it elsewhere. You may use a picture for the purposes of linking only. You are welcome to sell earrings made using this tutorial but please take your own photos!