Easy Beaded Necklace

I'm feeling a bit under the weather; body aches, sore throat, stuffy nose, etc. So while I was home today laying on the couch watching Harry Potter DVD's to my hearts content, I made this little necklace to cheer myself up. I am by no means an expert at jewelry making, in fact, I generally just kind of improvise. I tend to end up with stuff that's not half bad though, so I keep at it.

To make this necklace all I used were beads (larger orange ones with some glitter to them, and smaller Robin's egg blue shell beads), some wire, a jump ring, a lobster clasp and some little jewelry pliers (I got them for $1 at Wal-Mart back in the day).

I used my wire to make several groupings of beads (blue-orange-blue), and connected them together to get my desired length. I connected them all together simply by using my pliers and makings little loops at the end of each wire piece, the loops are then hooked together. This gives the necklace the ability to move, rather than stay rigid. One end of the chain of beds then got a jump ring, and the other got a clasp. Voila! New necklace :)

I especially like this necklace because I used my new color combo obsession to make it: I LOVE LOVE LOVE orange with light blue.

Do you have any color crushes at the moment?

Recycled Paper Beads

Here is what I have been working on this morning, some paper beads made from magazine pages. I think Earth Day/ Earth Week might be happening this week for me, as I am totally into the recycled paper projects right now. These beads are great because, you can make them in any color, they are cheap (especially if you are using magazines/newspapers rather than a craft paper)and they can be made in any size to fit any project. You could even use scraps of gift wrap, as thin pliable paper really lends itself well to being wrapped in a cylinder.

I just cut strips of paper from my magazine (you don't realize how many fun beads you can get out of a magazine until you look, either). I find the ads to be especially useful, great backgrounds, lots of textures and gradients, and I generally don't care about any of the ads in my magazines anyway, so I can make this project without actually ruining any of the articles inside!

I wrapped my paper strips around the bottom of a crochet hook, though you could use any cylindrical object you like, and any size depending how big you want the holes in your beads to be. I used a little bit of paper Mod Podge, glossy finish, to glue my beads together. Just roll your paper up on your tool of choice (chopsticks work great--just pick up an extra set the next time you go out for cheap takeout!) and then coat the entire outside of your bead with the Mod Podge to seal it. You can use a matte finish if you prefer as well, I happened to have glossy finish on hand, and I like my beads to have a little extra shine. The whole project took about 30 minutes and now I have my own supply of one of a kind paper beads to use as I see fit!

Beaded Earrings

Today I threw these together with some beads I liked, craft wire, and some earring hooks. I may wear them to a little event tonight and show them off. You can get the jewelry findings at any craft store (I think even Wal-Mart sells them). As far as beads go, you can find them at rock shops, craft store, bead shops or even take an old necklace you no longer like, but enjoy the beads or stones from and repurpose it into a new necklace/bracelet/pair of earrings.