Beaded Friendship Bracelets E-Book

Lora S. Irish

• Herausgeber: Fox Chapel Publishing
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 95

Beschreibung

Beaded Friendship Bracelets is an exciting, beginner-friendly guide that will show you tons of awesome ideas for making beautiful bracelets using all kinds of beads and other materials for your friends and family! Super easy and super fun, discover over 100 beaded bracelet designs, plus tons of trendy techniques to try, knots to know, expert tips, step-by-step instructions, and high-quality photography to help you along the way and ensure success. Learn all the exciting ways to express your creativity and make something special with Beaded Friendship Bracelets! Also included are overviews on supplies, beads, accessories, tools, and materials, as well as tutorials for creating color schemes, stringing bracelets, making tassels and other accents, and more.

Leseprobe

Acknowledgements

I wish to extend my deepest thanks to Gretchen Bacon, Shelley Carr, Madeline DeLuca, David Fisk, Diana Kern, Christopher Morrison, and Kelly Umenhofer for their excellent work in the creation, development, and refinement of this manuscript. As an author, it is a wonderful experience to be working with such a well-skilled team.

© 2023 by Lora S. Irish and Fox Chapel Publishing Company, Inc., 903 Square Street, Mount Joy, PA 17552.

Beaded Friendship Bracelets is an original work, first published in 2023 by Fox Chapel Publishing Company, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright holders.

ISBN 978-1-4971-0405-1eISBN 978-1-6374-1272-5

The Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the Library of Congress.

Editor: Madeline DeLuca

Designer: Christopher Morrison

Photography: David Fisk, Lora S. Irish

Proofreader: Kelly Umenhofer

Indexer: Diana Kern

Shutterstock photos: PRILL, page (bottom right), kosolovskyy, page (upper left), Africa Studio, page (upper right), fle-x-elf, page (center right).

To learn more about the other great books from Fox Chapel Publishing, or to find a retailer near you, call toll-free 800-457-9112 or visit us at www.FoxChapelPublishing.com.

We are always looking for talented authors. To submit an idea, please send a brief inquiry to [email protected].

Introduction

Friendship bracelets are an easy DIY craft that you can personalize with fun colors and beads—they’re both a touching gift and a creative activity to do with your friends. In this book, you’ll find 108 designs to spark your imagination—but with boundless beads, charms, tassels, and more, the design possibilities are truly endless. These bracelets are quick and easy enough that you can make them at the end of the day, but also sophisticated enough that people will be sure to ask where you got yours from. And that’s the key to friendship bracelets: they introduce you to even more friends!

The beads we’ll use in this book are heishi beads. The earliest heishi beads are documented back to 6000 BCE from the cloth and jewelry beadwork of the Kewa Pueblo people (formerly known as the Santo Domingo Pueblos of New Mexico). The pueblo word heishi means shell. These small, hand-drilled beads feature a flat disc shape, often with an unrounded edge and a central stringing hole, and are made from natural material such as shell, clay, polished stones, and wood.

While the Kewa Pueblos gave this bead style its name, there are ostrich eggshell beads c. 30,000 years ago from Northern Africa that also fit the definition of heishi beads.

Today’s heishi beads are called clay beads. The polymer clay is rolled into long cylinder strips, a central hole is drilled, and then the strip is cut into small slices that make up the individual clay bead. They are available in 16-in. bead strings or as loose bead packets in mixed color sets.

Most clay beads available to the jewelry maker today are cut to a uniform size of 6mm x 1mm with a 2mm hole. The polymer is non-toxic, durable, and fade resistant. For bracelet makers, it has the added advantages of being both lightweight and waterproof.

The variety of clay bead colors seems unlimited. All of these assets make working with clay beads in our bracelet designs fun, easy, and creative!

Contents

Jewelry Making Supplies

Beads and Accessories

Stringing Materials

Tools and Other Supplies

Basic Techniques

Choosing Beads and Color Schemes

How to Measure the Length of Your Bracelet

How to String Your Bracelet

Knots You Should Know

How to Make Tassels

How to Make Fabric Beads

How to Add Chain to Your Design

Elastic Cord Bracelets

Techniques

Step-by-Step Project

Projects

Nylon String, Dental Floss, and Lobster Clasp Bracelets

Techniques

Step-by-Step Project

Projects

Linen and Twine Cord Bracelets

Techniques

Step-by-Step Project

Projects

Memory Wire Bracelets

Techniques

Step-by-Step Project

Projects

Jewelry Making Supplies

Before you begin, make sure you have the correct supplies. You will need to make sure you have the proper beads, latches, stringing materials, and more, depending on which type of bracelet you plan on creating. It doesn’t hurt to plan ahead in jewelry making–you will be grateful for it later.

An assortment of jewelry supplies is needed to complete your clay bead bracelets. Jewelry tools, cords, threads, beads, and jewelry finding all can be used for our designs.

Beads and Accessories

Perhaps the most fun part of jewelry making is picking which beads and accessories you will be crafting with. Are you making something for your friend who loves all things turtles? Are you creating a bracelet for yourself, and your favorite color is blue? Once you have a general idea of what you want the bracelet to look like, it’s time to think deeper about the specific beads, charms, and other accessories that you will be working with.

A set of pre-mixed clay bead colors is a great way to start your jewelry work. This set contains 24 individual muted-toned clay bead colors, gold and silver jump rings, and gold and silver 6mm spacer beads.

Beads

We are using clay beads as the basic bead for the bracelet designs. There are so many bright and beautiful glass, bone, gemstone, and acrylic beads available to the hobby jeweler that we will be using a wide variety of these as accent beads.

Beads are noted through the instructions in this book by size, material, shape, color, hole size, and use. As an example, you may need a bead that is 6mm in diameter, dark brown, made of bronze metal, tube shaped, with a large-hole opening. That bead will be listed as 1 – 6mm, dark bronze, large-hole tube bead.

This second color mix holds the bright, vivid color tones of the rainbow. The set also includes shades of white, gray, brown, and black to use as accent colors.

If you need large quantities of clay beads, they are also available in pre-strung 16-in. strands. You can purchase both color mixes as well as individual colors.

Types of Beads

Design Principles

Filler Beads

Accent Beads

Focal Beads

Just like the clay beads we are using, many different beads can be purchased in color mixes.

Color mixes are usually all one size of bead–only the color changes. The set shown here is a twenty-four-color collection of 8mm frosted glass pearls.

Bead Dangles, Chains, and Pre-Made Tassels

It is so fun to add a little surprise to your bracelet design like charms, tassels, and bead dangles. A great source of bead dangles is vintage or broken jewelry necklaces. You can repurpose several accent pieces from old jewelry for your clay bead bracelets. Chains, linked beads, focus bead dangles, tassels, and more can be recycled for a cool, classic feel.

From one old necklace you can glean a clasp, jump rings, chain sections, and beads that are already wired to add directly to your work.

Bead Caps

Bead caps are metal findings that are used on either side of your accent bead. They are sized by their width. Usually, your bead dangle is one size smaller than your accent bead. Purchase 6mm bead caps to fit 8mm glass beads. The caps add a little metal sparkle that can make one accent bead visually more powerful than another.

Spacer Beads

Spacer beads can be found in all the general beadmaking materials, from glass, gemstone, and metal. These are narrow beads, often oval or cone shaped, that go between larger beads or groups of similar beads to visually break the design. In the project instructions you will see spacer beads used to separate one grouping of clay bead colors from the next.

In our designs we will use spacer beads to hide the knot for elastic cord bracelet work.

Barrel/Tube Beads, Tibetan Silver Beads

Large-hole beads come under several names—tube beads, barrel beads, and Tibetan silver beads. All have one common property, and this is that the size of the hole is 3mm or larger. These beads work wonderfully with our string materials as well as leather lacing, shoelaces, thin macrame cord, and paracord.

Bail Beads

Bail beads are large-hole beads that also feature an added eye ring that you can use to attach lobster clasp bead dangles, charms, and tassels.

Tube beads and bail beads come in a wonderful array of designs, metals, and textures.

Like so many jewelry supplies, bead caps can be purchased in assorted shapes. Smaller-sized caps—8mm or smaller— often come in various sizes within one mix. Extra fancy bead caps may go under the name of Tibetan silver bead caps.

SAVING MONEY

These options add affordability, versatility, and enhance the beauty of your creations.

Want to use those special focal beads for your bracelet project?

Cut cost by incorporating a variety of lower-cost items to accent those special beads. Use seed beads, silver spacers (tube, daisy, round, oval, or square), silver beads, E beads, bead caps, and so much more to fill in the space while keeping the cost down and showing off those special interest beads.

Seed Bead Spacers

Bead Caps and Beads

Silver Bead Spacers

Charms

Charms have been a classic accent to bracelet making for many years. You can add charms to your clay bead bracelets by using a jump ring, lobster clasp, and bail bead.

Eye Pins

Eye pins have a loop at one end which helps to create speedy bead dangles. They can be bought in many lengths and metals, depending on the type of bracelet you are going for. Thread your bead onto the eye pin, leaving about 1cm of wire. Use your round-nose pliers to bend the wire above the bead to create a loop. Now you can attach jump rings, beads, and charms to your links.

Chain

You can add chain to your design for added texture and whimsy. I recommend a 2mm chain of any color. See here for a step-by-step project on how to add it to your bracelet.

Keychain Latch

Latchkey bracelets let you and your friends wear a bright colorful bracelet that also holds your house key, car key, or any other special item.

By adding a keychain latch, this bracelet can hold anything that you might usually have on a keychain on your pocket or purse.

Spacer Bars

This special finding is used to separate strands of jewelry work that will be united onto one bracelet. Spacer bars come with two to five holes; each hole is made to support one strand of work.

Here the two bronze three-hole spacer beads separate the three strands of clay bead and black accent beadwork.

While almost all spacer bars are made from metal alloy, this bar is a two-hole bar made from abalone shell.

Clasps

There are many styles of clasps that can be used with thread and string bracelets. Lobster claw clasps are the most common and readily available at your local jewelry supply store. They come in silver, gold, bronze, copper, and even matte black.

Lobster claw clasps are a very secure option for your bracelet; they cannot fall off.

Large-Hole Lampwork Beads