Project by The Beading Room: ‘Sunshine Dreams’ Bracelet

There’s something about turquoise and white that reminds me of the tropics.  I designed this with heading south in mind; I incorporated gold, copper and silver into the piece so it could be worn with almost anything.  Don’t be afraid to mix metals!  Sometimes the contrast between metals really makes the design stand out.

What you need: (just click on the links and add them to your cart on the site)

• 9 x faceted fire polished donuts in blue turquoise travertine
• 24 x pinch beads in white chrome
• 48 x matubo 7/0 in turquoise blue picasso
• 48 x matubo 7/0 in crystal picasso
• 3 x silver plated crimp beads
• 3 x silver plated crimp beads covers
• 1 x tierracast rhodium plated toggle ‘radiant square’
• 1 meter of Flexrite Pearl Silver 7 Strand .014 coated wire

Tools:

• 3 x bead stoppers
• chain nose pliers
• crimping pliers or these 1 Step Crimping Pliers which we adore!
• flush cutters

What to do:

1. Cut your beading wire into three equal lengths of 30 centimeters.  Gather them together and treat them as one wire for now.
2. On one end of the wires, thread a crimp bead and the ring end of your toggle clasp.  Fold your wires through the hole and back through your crimp bead, crimp to fasten.  Leave about 10mm of wire past your crimp bead.  This will ensure it doesn’t slip.
3. Gently clamp your crimp bead cover over your crimp, being careful not to trap any wires.
4. Thread on your 9 donut beads.  You will notice they will slip nicely over your doubled-over bead wires, covering them up (Yay, don’t you love when that happens?).
5. Thread another crimp bead over your wires and secure in place.  Clamp a crimp bead cover over that.  Now we will split the wires and use each of them to thread different beads!
6. On one outside wire, thread your turquoise blue Matubo beads and secure with a bead stopper.  On the middle wire, thread your pinch beads on and secure snugly with another bead stopper.  On the other outside wire, thread your crystal picasso Matubo beads on and secure.
7. Lay the bracelet down nice and flat.  Make sure all the bead stoppers are holding all your beads snugly in place.  Adjust if necessary.  Braid the bead strings as necessary for your wrist, taking into account the toggle bar that will be on there shortly.  For me and my medium sized wrist it was 4 complete braid patterns.
8. Hold the ends of the wire firmly and slip the bead stoppers off.  Put a crimp bead on the three wires together, then your bar end of the toggle.  Fold the wires back through the crimp bead and secure, making sure the wires are pulled taught but not too tight as to make your bracelet rigid.
9. Finally, tighten your crimp bead and thread the tails back through a couple of beads before trimming.  Then secure your cover over your crimp bead to finish.

I had leftover beads so I went on to make this one too…this time with copper fastenings.  Which do you prefer?

 (Originally published March 12, 2015)