EZDIY Leather and Curved Tube Bracelet,Wire

EZDIY Leather and Curved Tube Bracelet

Learn to create this popular DIY bracelet with 2mm leather and curved tube beads. This easy-to-make, double-wrap leather and curved tube bracelet made with simple overhand knots is a versatile tutorial for a single-wrap, double-wrap, triple-wrap or more.

As seen in our Trends we Love: Leather and Tube Beads, create a longer length to double as a necklace or bracelet. Or simply be inspired to add spacers and metal beads.

What you will need:

1.3mm or 2mm Leather Cord

50mm Curved Tube Beads (A014097). If you love gold, try Gold Curved Tube Beads (A014101)

33mm Large Round Swivel Lobster Clasp (Z008325)

Tutorial

Wire Snowflake Ornament Forms and Tutorial

The holidays are coming up and we’ve got a fun tutorial with tips and tricks to creating snowflake ornaments with wire snowflake ornament forms.

Wire Snowflake Ornament Forms

The Wire Snowflake forms comes in FOUR different sizes. Depending on the amount of beads you want on each peg will determine which ornament form to buy.

A006240 – 3 3/4″

Z009715 – 4 1/2″

A006241 – 6″

Z009790 – 9″

Tools

Tools are important when completing your ornament. Because the snowflake form has thicker gauge wire, it is best to cut the wire with a Memory Wire Cutter (FTTL0005). You will create a simple loop at the tip of your pegs, for this you can use round nose pliers and roll a loop. However, we love to use the Memory Wire Finishing Pliers (TLZ0207), which creates less stress on looping the pegs. And Serrated Pliers (A001682) to close your loops because it helps grip the peg wires without slipping.

Tutorial

Step One: Slide beads onto a peg. Keep a 1/4″ peg end. Cut with memory wire cutters, if neccessary.

Step Two: Use your round nose pliers or memory wire finishing pliers to roll a simple loop as close as you can. Step Three: Use a serrated nose pliers and squeeze the loop together.

Step Four: Squeezed loop. Step Five: Fill the rest of your ornament by skipping one peg and repeat steps 1-3. Skip another peg and repeat until you’ve completed your ornament.

Inspirational Ornaments

Here are some inspiring ornaments you can create with lampwork beads, Swarovski® crystals, Chinese crystals, bead caps and more! Products used:Z009715, A008538, Z001553, SB00106, A002934 (2)

Each peg consists of: seed bead, gold Czech, bead cap, (4) Chinese crystal, bead cap, gold Czech and seed bead.

Products used:Z009715, A002934 (2), SW00360 (12), A005569 (2), SB00106, A002413, A019704

Each peg consists of: seed bead, bicone crystal, bead cap, lampwork, bead cap, bicone crystal and seed bead. Open jump ring, slide through one peg loop, through loop of tassel and close jump ring. Open another jump ring, slide on peg loop opposite of previous peg loop, through an ornament hook and close loop.

Products used:Z009715, A002934 (2), SB00106, A002413, SW00114 (12), A008316 (2), A0019700 This is a different color version like the purple and white snowflake from above. Repeat the same steps for this blue and white ornament.

GoodyBeads Inspiration: Wire Wrapping/Weaving Jewelry Designs

Mimic soft gauge wire to coil it with beads or chain, wrap it to make bangle bracelets, freestyle bends to make a star or create links of eyepin dangles. How will you use it?

1. February Birthstone – Feb ’16 Trend 2. Flat Memory Wire – Aug ’15 Trend 3. Wire Wrapped Bracelets – March ’15 Trend 4. Flat Memory Wire – Aug ’15 Trend 5. Red Carpet Jewelry – Sept ’15 Trend 6. March Birthstone – March ’16 Trend 7. Beadalon® Artistic Wire® 3D Bracelet Jig and Tutorial – Sept ’16 Blog

1. Tutti Frutti – June ’16 Trend 2. Beadalon® Artistic Wire® 3D Bracelet Jig and Tutorial – Sept ’16 Blog 3. GoodyBeads EZ DIY Series: Swarovski® Crystal Flat Memory Wire Bracelet – Blog 4. Czech Honeycomb Bracelet Tutorials – Blog 5. Artistic Wire® Finding Forms – Beaded Holiday Ornament Charms – Blog 6. How to Make a Wire-Wrapped Loop – Blog

1. Spotlight on Nunn Design® – Oct ’16 Trend 2. Spotlight on Nunn Design® – Oct ’16 Trend 3. Fiber Jewelry Designs – July ’16 Trend 4. Wire and Beaded Ornaments – Oct ’16 Trend 5. Fiber Jewelry Designs – July ’16 Trend 6. Spotlight on Nunn Design® – Oct ’16 Trend 7. Spotlight on Nunn Design® – Oct ’16 Trend

GoodyBeads EZ DIY Series: Adjustable Wire Bangle Bracelet

With a few tools, memory wire, and your favorite beads; you can make yourself an easy DIY adjustable wire bangle bracelet. Check our tutorial series to learn how!

Items used: WR00109, Z017508, Z014870, TC00264, A013728, FTTL0005, A013732.

Leather: Cutter Tools and Adhesive

Having the right tools and adhesive for leather projects will make it easier to create stylish accessories. We will show you the basic tools for cutting leather and the types of adhesive to use when adding clasp ends to leather.

Leather Cutter Tools

When cutting leather, you want a precise and straight cut. This will help with adding clasps and keeping your measurements accurate.

Flat and small round leather (i.e. 1mm, 2mm, or 3mm) needs a pair of scissors. Before making your cut, measure your piece of leather and mark with a pencil lightly.

Licorice and round leather are thicker and need a heavy-duty cutter. Below, we have a two cutter tools you can use to cut thicker side leather.

The Little Cut (TL0053) has a sharp angle blade that cuts leather by squeezing the handles together.

The Licorice Leather Cutter (A015862) has narrow handles, but cuts a perfect edge on your leather.

Pinch the handles to open the cutter. Slide the leather under the cutter, lining it up with the middle groove. Bring your blade down to wedge the leather in place. Grasp the cutter towards the front and squeeze down.

NOTE: Make sure to always have your angle blade facing down.

Leather Adhesive

We have two adhesive options to use when adding clasp ends.

Super New Glue

We like to use super new glue (A015821) for its quick drying and superior holding quality. Precut your leather. Put 1-2 drops of super new glue inside your clasp ends and swirl the glue inside to cover the edges and corners. Insert your leather and let it dry lying down on a flat surface. Dry time should take a few seconds to a minute or two.

E-6000

E-6000 (A011455) is used on heavy-duty beading and crafting projects. While it has a slower drying time, E6000 is a good filler especially when filling excess space or gaps around your leather when inserted into the clasp.

Precut your leather. Scoop up some E-6000 with a toothpick. Swab the inside of your clasp end. Repeat if necessary. You want to apply enough to coat the inside of the clasp. Insert leather ends and let it dry for 12-24 hours lying on a flat surface. Wipe excess glue cleanly if it flows out after leather is inserted.

Extra Note: You can use rubber bands to keep licorice leather in a round shape as the glue dries. And always use E6000 in a well ventilated area.

Important Notes: Make sure the inside of your clasp end is clean and dry. This helps ensure that your leather end sits flushed inside the clasp. You can swab the inside with a toothpick or cotton swabs to clean any dust or moisture.

If you find your leather cords have extra space in the clasp end, you can coil thin wire or beading thread like SuperLon thread at the ends before insert clasps.

Leather is stored in spools, which in time will create a natural curve. Use the natural curve of your leather to wrap around your wrist. Licorice leather will have a slight curve which you will need to bend to create a round curve.

Having more length of leather is better than not having enough. This is because the inner size of the bracelet may decrease depending if you are adding beads, charms or other embellishments to the leather. First, plan out your design. Next, without using glue, slide on clasp and test it on your wrist. Measure and cut your leather to the desired length. Glue other side of clasp and let dry.

And always, always don’t glue your clasps until you’re sure you’ve added your design elements and your measurements are correct.

Beadalon® Tassel Maker and Video

With thisBeadalon tassel maker, you can a make tassel in no time! Check out how to set up and use this tool. Embellish your next project with customized tassels.

Learn to easily make tassels with the tassel maker (TL00230).

Grab some of your favorite thread or pick up some Beadalon cotton thread and check out the tutorial video below, provided by Beadalon.

Tassel Maker Video

Artistic Wire® Finding Forms – Beaded Holiday Ornament Charms

Make some fun beaded holiday ornament charms with Artistic Wire® Finding Forms. Watch Artistic Wire demonstrate how to create a star, snowman or tree. Hang one from a holiday tree, dangle one from a window or attach one to a neatly wrapped present! Get your finding forms, artistic wire, and seed beads today at GoodyBeads to make some beaded holiday ornaments of your own!

What you will need to create a finding form ornament charm:

Artistic Wire Finding Forms

20 or 22 Gauge Artistic Wire

26 Gauge Artistic Wire

Holiday Tree Ornament Charm

Here we created a holiday tree (TL00250) with 22 Gauge Antique Brass Wire (AW00026) and included a Swarovski® star bead to the top. We took 26 Gauge Artistic Wire and wrapped back and forth on the inside of the tree while adding random seed beads. This project is perfect if you have leftover seed beads from previous projects. You can also use our Miyuki Seed Bead Grab Bag (A011619) for a nice variation of color and sizes.

Holiday Star Ornament Charm

Our star (TL00251) is made with Antique Brass Wire (AW00026) with bronze, white, clear and cream hued seed beads crisscrossed in the middle on 26 gauge wire.

Holiday Snowman Ornament Charm Designed By Tory Vezina

We think this snowman (TL00253) is just darling! We added an 8mm squaredelle (A011435) and 6mm Swarovski cube (SW00309) to depict a top hat for our snowman. We ran some 26 Gauge artistic wire side to side, and layered with seed beads and Czech melon beads for the scarf.

How to Use Crimp Covers

Crimp covers are used to conceal the crimp tubes you use in treasured jewelry designs. They not only hide the tubes, but they also prevent your jewelry piece from snagging on clothing and create an overall professional look. See our easy-to- follow instructions below to learn how to place crimp covers.

When you crimp to finish your jewelry piece, using crimp covers to hide your crimps will create an overall professional look. Check out our video below on how to first crimp your crimp tubes.

Crimp Covers

Crimp covers come in many different sizes, as well as crimp tubes. Depending on the size of your crimp tube, you will need a crimp cover large enough to encase the crimp tube. For instance, if you used a 3mm crimp tube, you will need a 4mm crimp cover. There is helpful information in the description of the crimp covers to help determine the best crimp tube size to use with. Note the highlighted information below.

Crimp Cover Tutorial

Once you have crimped your crimp tubes, you are ready to add your crimp covers. Here’s how to use crimp covers.

Step One: Crimp your crimp tubes on your jewelry wire with crimping pliers.

Step Two: Cup the crimp cover between the first notch of your crimping pliers. Make sure to have the opening facing outward. Step Three: Slide the crimp cover over your crimped tube.

Step Four: Your crimp cover should fit and be encased inside the middle of your crimp cover. If it is not, you may want to try a larger crimp cover to avoid seeing any of the crimped tube. Step Five: Gently squeeze your pliers over the crimped tube.

Step Six: Gently squeeze pliers around the crimp cover to round it out and to close the seams of the crimp cover. Completed crimp cover.

Samples of Jewelry Using Crimp Covers Designed by Tory Vezina

This Glass Menagerie Bracelet from our lampwork jewelry blog uses crimp covers.

From our May 2015 Wedding Day Jewelry Trend, crimp covers help to finish this elegant pearl necklace.

And this Czech beaded bracelet with owl dangle uses crimp covers to create an extra design element next to the bronze seed beads.

GoodyBeads EZ DIY Series: How to Make a Resin Pendant

From our GoodyBeads vault, we pull out our EZ DIY Series on how to make a resin pendant. This tutorial will show you the basics of how to mix resin and to use resin with bezels.

Resin

Resin comes in two parts: a resin solution and a hardener solution. To utilize the resin, you will mix equal parts of the two. Only then will it cure or harden after 24 hours of sitting. Check out GoodyBeads Resin supplies.

When mixing the resin, always pour into a container that will be discarded later, like these cups and sticks. When mixing the two solutions, always scrape the bottoms and sides at a slow speed for two minutes. If you mix rigorously, you will create more bubbles, which may be harder to get rid of later.

Once mixed, let the it settle for a minute before use. Depending on the resin, you have less than an hour to use the resin before it starts to thicken or become unmanageable.

Bezels

Each bezel has a framed lip, which is great for resin, as the resin will be contained within the bezel area. You can also create a resin dome with a bezel. To do so, pour the resin almost to the top. Let it dry for a few hours. Then pour more resin on top slowly, in the middle, to create a dome.

Note: Make sure to clean off any debris or dust that may have settle in the bezel before pouring in resin.

Resin and Bezel Tutorial

Resin Tips

If there are small bubbles after you pour in your resin, take a straw and blow gently at the bubble. This will help pop it. You can also use a toothpick to pop the bubbles. To dome your resin in your bezel, fill your bezel until it reaches almost to the top. Let it sit for a few hours. Your second resin layer will dome your bezel. Slowly pour a little resin at a time. Let it settle to the edges while your slowly pour the resin into a done shape. Let it dry for another 24 hours. If you use pre-printed collage sheets or a printed image from your printer, make sure to seal the front and back of the paper with glue or Modge Podge. Let it completely dry before use. Color or tint your resin with opaque or transparent Dye. You can pour resin into resin molds. Make sure to coat the molds with a conditioner for easy resin removal later.

Jump Rings

Jump rings are an essential product to have when making jewelry. Jump rings are used to make connections to clasps, chain links, charms, and many more. We will show how jump rings have been used in various jewelry projects, and also teach you how to open a jump ring correctly.

How to Open a Jump Ring

What you will need:

2 pair of chain or flat nose pliers Jump rings

Step One: Hold one side of your jump ring with one of your pliers, clamping at the middle of the pliers.

Step Two: Take your second pair of pliers and grasp the other side of the jump ring almost perpendicular to your left pliers. Step Three: Keeping the left pliers steady, rotate your right pliers towards you to open the jump ring.

Step Four: To close the jump ring, rotate your right pliers away from you until the two ends meet. Note: Jump rings should never be opened by pulling the sides of your jump rings apart.

Jump Ring Video Tutorial

Check out our video tutorial on how to open and close jump rings with Alisun and Kristal Wick.

Sample Uses of Jump Rings In our April 2016 Trend, we featuredstampable charms and connectors. Here we used jump rings to connect to other connector links, as well as chain link. When using a similar size of jump rings, you won’t even notice that jump rings were used to connect these pieces together.

Adding charms to an expandable bracelet? Jump rings work great. Just make sure to use a large enough size to attach the charm to the bracelet like the example above. Chain maille is a popular jewelry art. The combination of different sizes and colors of jump rings can make an intricate design that looks like a piece of art.

Even in our previous blog on How to Rivet, after we riveted a leather loop we used jump rings to connect the leather strands to a watch face or magnetic clasp. The brass jump rings were selected to match the color of the watch face and clasp, making the overall piece cohesive.