Tutorial: Christmas Berry Necklace

Christmas Berry Necklace

Christmas Necklace Tutorial

This sweet necklace can be made with any kind of beads, chain, and connector.  The possible combinations are endless, and easy to make. Stringing the beads on metal pins makes a very sturdy rosary style necklace that will last a lifetime.  For this necklace, I am using some vintage West German 8mm pressed glass beads, and brass findings.

Difficulty level:  beginner/ easy

Tools and Supplies (see figure 1)
*round nose pliers
*flat or chain nose pliers
*jump ring tool (looks like a ring)
*shears or wire cutters
*Seven  8mm beads (more if you are using smaller beads)
*One bird connector
*Ten 4mm jump rings
*Seven eye pins
*One lobster clasp
*One 7 or 8mm jump ring for clasp
*about 12 inches of chain

A. Place a bead on one of the eye pins. Using your shears or wire cutters, clip off the end of the pin, leaving about 1/4 inch sticking out.

B.   Using the flat nose pliers, bend the sticking out part of the pin at right angles, getting as close as possible to the bead.

C.  Grasp the beaded pin by the eye (loop) with your left hand. Using the round nose pliers in your right hand, twist your wrist to curl the sticking out part of the pin to make an eye.  This is not difficult, but it takes practice.  Make several before you start, so you feel comfortable doing it. You can cut the pin to remove the bead and start over if needed.  Your goal is to make an eye that looks just like the first one~ same size, same orientation, and closed completely.  Use the flat nose pliers to straighten and tighten your eye loop.  Repeat until all 7 beads are on their pins.

D.  Now we are going to hook all of the beads together in a rosary style chain using the 4mm jump rings.
Using your left hand, hold a jump ring firmly with your flat nose pliers (see figure 3).  Using the jump ring tool on your right hand, twist your wrist to open the jump ring. Add 2 of your beaded pins. Twist your wrist to close the jump ring, making sure the ends line up tightly.  Twist back and forth to line up the ends of the jump ring if you need to.  Continue this process until all of your beaded pins are hooked together in a chain.

E.  Hook the bird connector to one end of your beaded chain with a jump ring.

F.  Using a ruler, measure your beaded chain.  You should have about  5 or 6 inches.  If your beads are small, you will need more of them to make a chain this long; or less beads if they are larger (see figure 4).

G.  Now the hard part~ you need to do the math.  I want my necklace to come out about 18 inches long.  Subtract the length of your beaded chain from 18, and that tells me I need 12 inches of chain, or 6 inches on each side.

H. Measure the chain and cut the necessary length for each side of the necklace. The chain I am using has links that open using the jump ring tool. If your chain has soldered links, cut it with the shears.

I.  Hook the chain pieces to each side of your beaded length using the jump rings (see figure 5).

J. Attach the lobster clasp to one end of the necklace with a jump ring. Attach the 7mm jump ring to the other end (see figure 6).

And you're done!

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