Mother's day rolled paper bracelet

I carried on with my rolled paper beads theme to make this bracelet for a mother's day present: 

I made straight beads rather than the usual sort of tapered oval/bicone ones, by rolling rectangles of paper instead of triangles. It's slightly fiddlier in that you have to get the paper exactly straight to start with, with no room for error, and also the pattern will show on the outside of the roll much more obviously so you have to bear that in mind when choosing paper. I used an advert for a Honda car, which has lots of shades of purple in it. I alternated which end of the paper came out on top for a variety of bead colours.

Then I decided to do something a little bit different from just stringing them together, and did this sort of ladder design. The beads are side-by-side, rather than end-to-end. It's quite simple to do, but mine was massively complicated by the fact that I didn't have any proper bead-stringing thread and had to use embroidery thread. I wanted to use a cotton cord, but all the ones I've got were too thick to go through the beads twice (as it has to for this design) and far too thick to go through the fastener, and we don't have any bead shops to get more from in Newcastle. None at all. Not one. So, embroidery thread it was, the benefit of which is that it comes in every shade in the world so you can pick the right one. Combined with some nice purple beads for the ends, I was happy with the colours.

To make the bracelet, you have to start from the middle of the thread so that you have two ends (on needles is easiest, though dangerous). Each time you add a paper bead, you need to thread each end first through a seed bead, then each end goes through the paper bead, from opposite ends of the bead so that the threads cross over inside the bead. Once you get into it it's quite a quick process (though using embroidery thread means it keeps on getting knotted and splitting - don't use this).

Child's jewellery

I don't normally make jewellery for children. But I will make an exception for people I like, and a work colleague who I like asked me to make some for a child of her acquaintance. So I did. Said colleague has a necklace of mine which said child liked, and so this is her tiny little version all of her very own, with matching bracelet. I'm quite pleased with getting the two different kinds of hearts to match (I used different kinds because a necklace likes dangly beads but a bracelet likes non-dangly ones, specially for a kid who may catch it on stuff). Hope she likes it - the colours are quite muted but I didn't have any in really bright pink, which is what small girls like, I'm told.

Items for sale on Folksy!

I went to Leeds at the weekend and bought lots of beads for making Xmas presents, but those will not appear on this blog till after Xmas. However, I also got some other things too, among which these nice bumpy beads. I made links by putting each on an eye pin and linked them together, then attached a length of Byzantine chain maille at each end, then a length of pale pink ribbon and fastened it with a toggle clasp. I've listed it for sale on my new shop on Folksy too.

And I listed this one - made with my jump ring maker out of turquoise and silver-plated wire linked in pairs with seed beads on alternate links.

Things I have been doing lately

As promised, here are the other things I just hadn't got round to posting. This is the chain maille bracelet I made from a kit from Creative Beadcraft. I decided to get a kit even though it cost £7.95 and I normally wouldn't buy a kit because I thought it would be easier when it's a complicated technique to have the instructions for the actual components rather than try and match up online instructions with whatever I could get. And also the beads are Swarovski and I wanted to see what all the fuss is about, whether they're any sparklier than cheaper ones. I'm not sure they are, really.

You use the jump rings in pairs and make a chain of pairs (a 2 by 2 chain). Then you make another exactly the same. Then you link them with pairs of rings joining every other link in the chains, if you see what I mean. It's quite easy and not as fiddly as it sounds. The fiddly part in making this was wiring in all the beads - that took far longer.

This is the black bracelet made with beads from an old one. The one I took apart was a free gift I got with a magazine years ago, and I think I wore it once. These beads were knotted on black ribbon and it was pretty but impractical. I couldn't even fasten it myself. So I put them all apart from the one I used for this bracelet onto Elasticity and spaced them with black pearly glass beads and made a simple chunky black bracelet which is great for easy going out jewellery.

Copper, suger and charms (as Hawkwind never sang)

This is a charm bracelet, my first experiments with chain. It's easier than I thought, and looks cool, I think. The charms are all ones I had from something I took apart ages ago, and I think they look much better on the bracelet. It's fiddly, mind.

These beads I bought because they look like they're covered in sugar, which can only be a good thing in my opinion. the design is similar to one I did a few years ago, made by twisting the beads onto strands of wire and twisting the strands together. The seed beads are loose so they move freely.

And another one I love and didn't want to give away. Copper lined pale blue beads, on memory wire with blue and copper seed beads, and little stars. I haven't got any more stars left now so I can't make another just like it.

Multi-coloured swirly discs

A fab bright, bold necklace and bracelet set. the necklace is 2-strand, on red and blue tigertail, and the bracelet has a similar sized toggle to the beads. I love these and may make some for myself.

Shrinkles!

Looks a bit Christmassy, doesn't it? It wasn't meant to be. This is a memory wire bracelet made with those square beads I've had forever, interspersed with wooden and fire-polished glass accents, and SHRINKLES! I got so over-excited about having Shrinkles again. I used to love making them as a child. It's basically plastic that you draw on, cut out, whatever, and then you heat it in the oven (or with a heat gun, as I did) and it shrinks seven times smaller and seven times thicker. It's fab and looks amazing. But if you heat them with a gun, they do tend to blow about the place so you have to be careful - I think using the oven is easier, but you have to watch them so it helps if your oven has a glass door, which mine doesn't. Incidentally, Shrinkles seem to have got hard to find. Fenwick's used to sell them but were unable to locate any last time I asked. Mine came from trusty eBay.

Solid links

This one was made with these nice oval rings. They've been sitting about on my desk for ages because I couldn't find anything good to do with them but then I made this. As they're just a solid ring, they have to be linked with jump rings, and the in-between links are from Yum Yums again - they're wire wrapped beads, mostly black but with the odd dark blue one mixed in.

This necklace is similar, but the rings are twisty. Instead of jump rings to link them, I made links with eye pins - just put a few beads on and turn the non-bent end the same as the other end. You could do it with plain wire, of course, but using eye pins means half the work's done for you. The clear cubey beads were from eBay, they were a measly 99p for 100 with free delivery! They came from Hong Kong as well, so I can't imagine postage was that cheap.

Spotty glass bead bracelet

These beads are from Yum Yums too - I did quite well out of that one visit. It's a bit hard to tell in the photo, but the spots have a sort of metallic, petrolly effect which looks very cool on the clear glass. It's just strung on silver tigertail with small blue cuboids in between. I tried it with blue tigertail, but it stood out too much.

Big bead bracelets

I've gone bracelet mad! I've been making millions of them, I can't get enough. These are all made with Elasticity. The beads for the ones in the top two photos are from the wonderful Yum Yum beads in Leeds, where I went a bit mad buying loads of stuff when I went the other day. They know how to run a bead shop - they have all their beads in little trays, and little tubs for you to gather them up in yourself. Le Beado could learn a lot from them. Which is where the beads in the bottom photo came from, actually - much more expensive than Yum Yum's, at 55p each (the ones in the top picture were 40p each on a multibuy deal).

And I made two more of the bumpy bead bracelets with the rest of the beads, so I got three bracelets out of that £4.50 pack, and a few left over. Not bad.

Bumpy bead bracelet

How cute is this? The beads are about half of a pack I bought from John Lewis (I haven't linked to it because you can't buy them online) and they're strung on Elasticity (a special beading elastic which is not too stretchy and very smooth). I didn't have the same problems I had last time with tying it either, so that's good.

Modestly-priced expensive jewellery

You might have seen these glass beads with a silver core, which are sort of like charms - you pick a few that you like and string 'em on a chain. They're blimmin' expensive, generally up to a tenner a go. Well, while in Bainbridge's (yes, John Lewis) looking for a clasp for my grandma's necklace (which I got in Fenwick's in the end) I found the very same beads for £3 for a pack of two. They may not be sterling silver, but they look just as nice. So after much dithering, and a trip to Fenwick's to see what they had (I bought the chain there actually, as it was a pound cheaper at £2.95) I bought the bits to make this:

I strang it when I went back to uni, it was so easy - you don't need any tools, a moron could put this together. And I love it so much I think I'll be buying more and will make others. You can change it, of course, whenever you want, or if you want to make it more permanent you could put a jump ring through the hole and make it so the beads can't come off. I think I'll leave it and then I can mix and match to my outfits. Though I love this with its bright colours. I think a black and silver one would look nice, or perhaps with a bit of light pink in too. I'll be making my mother one as she'll love these nice coloured beads.

And I did check the price of ready-made ones after - one similar was £30 in a cut-price jeweller's. Mine cost £11 and about two minutes' work, and it's just the way I wanted it. Fab.