Beaded Necklace Tutorial

I made this last night and I'm really excited with how it turned out!

By the way, I made it with beads from an old bracelet and a chain from an old necklace, plus wire I already had. Hooray for free!

What you need:

• beads
• chain
• wire
• pliers

Start out by cutting a small piece of wire (the one I used isn't labeled but I would guess it's 22 gauge, if you're interested). Then use the pliers to make a small loop on the end like this.

Take a bead and string it on, and then make another little loop right at the other end.

Next, cut a slightly bigger piece of wire, and again make a little loop (you can make this loop a little bit bigger than on the other one) on the end. String a bead on it, and then string the bead on wire you just made putting the wire through one of the loops in that wire, followed by one more bead. This way your middle one will hang down a little bit. Finish off by making a small loop on the end. And there you have your first cluster.

Make another single bead on wire again first to string on your next cluster. Then take the next piece of wire, but when you make a loop at the end, loop it through the loop one on one of the ends of your previous cluster, like so.

Again then string a bead on this wire, the bead with the wire, and another bead before closing it off. Keep repeating this process until you have as many clusters as you'd like. I ended up with 7 of them, because I had 21 beads to work with. But more or less would look great too!

Then take jump rings to attach your chain to the loops on the ends of your chain of bead clusters. Because the chain I was using was small and the jump rings I had nearby didn't fit through them, I ended up making my own with the wire.

And now here is my finished necklace. I want to make more in different colors!

If you have any questions, feel free to ask :)