Beaded Jewelry Necklaces

When making beaded jewelry necklaces, ideally use a flexible beading wire or beading thread. Wire should have 21 or 49 strands of stainless steel wire, coated with nylon. Ideally you will not use strands with 7 wires as they will kink easily. Beading thread is perfect for stringing lightweight beads and it is available in many different colors.

Decide what length you want your necklace to be, and then add between 10 and 20cm. Cut your thread or wire to this length. The extra length will ensure that you have enough material to connect the clasp to the stringing materials.

Sometimes with beaded jewelry necklaces the stringing material rubs against the ends of the crimp bead, causing the necklace to break. To avoid this you can construct a small secure combination of bead, crimp and clasp as follows:

Select 2 crimp beads of a size that works with the stringing material, 1 clasp, and the beads for your beaded jewelry necklace design. You will use a special crimping tool or chain nose pliers to crimp your beads. Crimp beads are available in different sizes and can be smooth or covered with a design. Sterling silver crimp beads bend easier than base metal ones, and hold the wire more effectively, so your clasp is more likely to stay secure.

Slide a small bead (2-4mm) onto the stringing material, followed by a crimping bead. Now add another small bead on the stringing material about 3cm down. Add one end of the clasp (the jump ring) on after the crimp bead, and make a loop with the stringing material. Thread the end of the stringing material through the clasp section and then the bead-crimp-bead combination and use the crimping tool to crimp the bead in place. If you are using bead thread, you may wish to dab super glue or hypo cemement on either end to ensure that the beads and crimp are secure.

Now that you have this safety measure in place, you can lay out your beaded jewelry design on a beading board before stringing. The beading board enables you to prepare the design and measure it before stringing. When you are happy with your beaded jewelry necklace design, string the beads onto your stringing material, making sure to leave about 10cm of stringing material at the end.

As described above use a clasp section/ jump ring and the bead-crimp-bead combination and try to push the remaining stringing material into the bead holes below the crimp bead.

Make sure not to pull the stringing material too tight, leaving a small amount of slack in the necklace (2-4 mm). This allows the beads to move and rotate, without overly rubbing on each other or the stringing material. Also If the stringing material is too taught the necklace will not hang with a gentle curve, and instead will look rigid.

Crimp the second end and cut the stringing material with slush cutters. It is not recommended that you cut the wire too close to the crimp bead. 3 or 4cm of wire, neatly hidden in the bead holes is good insurance against breakage.