beads – Page 5 – A Smith of All Trades

Craft FAIL(ssss)

August 19, 2012August 19, 2012 Jessica Smith

Do you ever have one of those days where nothing seems to go right? I guess we all do, huh? Well, as far as craft projects go, that’s been the story of my week with new projects.

First, I tried to paint glass in an effort to turn two pretty jugs into lamps. They were so pretty…. but now they are so garbage. Lame.

Next, I tried to mod podge a comic book in a woven pattern onto a wooden tray. That was just a travesty. Double lame.

So, I stuck with what I know best — and that’s jewelry. I haven’t been super into making jewelry lately, but I found these beautiful teal beads at Michaels the other day so I plopped down onto my couch with some red wine and chocolate chops and created a beautiful necklace.

Yummo.

Now check out these fancy beads!

Aren’t they so pretty?!? I had to have them, and they were on clearance! Woot!

I also picked up some silver spacer beads. I strung everything together to make this purddddy necklace.

At least this necklace wasn’t a craft fail.

Also not a fail… my new sparkly fingernails! My mom and I got our nails done today and I couldn’t resist the glitter polish. And, it’s the gel/shelac stuff, so I can’t destroy it! Yay 🙂

Hope your weekend was more productive than mine!

Update: Bahaha. Rem loves the necklace!

Craft Projects, Jewelry

Basic Necklace Tutorial

July 31, 2012 Jessica Smith

I said months ago that I’d do a few tutorials on how to make jewelry. Well, today is my lovely coworker Rachel’s birthday (happy birthday, Rachel!!!) and I make all of my female coworkers jewelry for their birthdays. So I took the opportunity to take a few photos as I made her necklace — don’t worry, I already gave it to her so this isn’t a spoiler — so you all can see what I did. This tutorial is very basic and all of the supplies (minus these specific beads) can be found at Michaels, JoAnn’s, Hobby Lobby, etc.

First and foremost, you’ll need beading wire, crimp beads, a clasp and beads. You can use crimping pliers (mine are blue) or flat pliers (mine are purple) for this project (top left photo).

Step One: Cut the wire to the length you’d like it to be. Add a few extra inches for wiggle room.

Step Two: Place a crimp bead on your wire followed by your clasp (middle left photo). For this necklace, I used a toggle clasp and a gun metal crimp bead to match it. I love toggle clasps way more than the regular lobster class. They add that extra something to necklaces.

Step Three: Send the wire back down through the crimp bead so the wire makes a closed loop around the ring of the clasps (bottom left photo).

Step Four: This step has two options, depending on which set of pliers you choose to use. Pull your crimp bead close to the clasp, so only 1 or 2 mm of wire is showing. That gives the clasp a little wiggle room on the necklace, which I’ve found to be helpful when using toggles.

When your crimp bead is where you want it, grab your pliers. For crimping pliers, smash the bead with the top notch of the pliers to flatten the bead. Proceed to the second notch and crimp it again. This step puts a fold into the crimp bead. Finally, move your crimp bead back up to the top notch and crimp it again. This will round out the bead so it looks smooth along the wire (right photo).

If you have flat pliers, you can definitely just smash the crimp bead. It performs the same function as a crimp bead that’s been secured with crimping pliers, it just doesn’t look as nice. That doesn’t mean it looks bad, though. I used to do that with all of my necklaces until I bought the crimping pliers.
Step Five: Once your bead is crimped, it’s time for the fun part. Pick out your beads! I chose white plastic beads (top left photo) for Rachel’s necklace that I found at a thrift store. Gotta love recycling beads 🙂

Step Six: String your beads along the wire however you please (top middle photo). I know a lot of people like to use necklace organization tray, which allow you to place the beads how you want them on the necklace to see how it looks. Honestly, I just wing it. I think it’s more fun that way.

Step Seven: When all of your beads are strung, place the crimp bead onto the wire, followed by the second part of the clasps. Like the first time, re-loop the wire through and crimp your bead (top right photo). That will secure all of the beads on the wire and the clasps on the end.

Step Eight: Rock your new creation (bottom photo)!

Happy birthday, Rachel. I hope you like your new necklace and that your day is fantastic!!

Craft Projects

Smith sign project

July 23, 2012 Jessica Smith

Hey blog world, heyyyyy.

The hubster and I had a lovely weekend at the beach hanging out with some of our best friends, but today it’s back to work and back to crafting 🙂 Oh darn.

I’ve been slowly working on a project, revamping a Smith sign my mother-in-law gave us that she had hanging out around her house. It was pretty ugly — the font is just horrifying — but I figured I’d give it a go.

Um yeah, talk about not matching much that we own. So, I primed the whole thing with white paint, which took a few coats. I then stopped my project altogether because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do next.

When I was finally inspired to take the next step on this project, I started taping off stripes horizontally on the sign. I then painted every other section Behr’s Contemplation, the same color we have in our family room. I had to be really careful around the edges of the word, which I left white.

When I started this part of the project, I figured this would also be where I left it. But sometime was definitely missing. So again, I let my project sit until I had more inspiration.

Finally I figured out what I wanted to do. I’ve been playing around with EnviroTex Lite, which is a gloss that hardens on whatever surface you pour it on. I really like the way this stuff looks (wait until you see the other project I’ve been working on!), so I decided to fill the letters of our last name. So, I mod podged a single line of beads in every letter, then poured on the EnviroTex and waited for it to dry.

In the meantime, I ran over to Super Hobby Lobby World Land (that’s Brian name for it) and picked up some sweet ribbon with a silver accent in it. I pulled out my glue gun and started striping the ribbon in between each green and white stripe.