Perfecting Your Hobby With Jewelry-Making Beads
Designing and creating jewelry can be one of the most satisfying hobbies. If you have great skills and unique designs, you can make jewelry for family and friends. You can even bring in some money if your jewelry looks professional and is unique. There are a variety of beads you can use to make your jewelry.
Should shape be a huge consideration when selecting beads?The color and shape of your jewelry are incredibly important. You can either use one shape throughout or mix and match shapes within one jewelry piece. Some of the shapes you can find include:
- Bicone: Bicone beads look like little crystals, and they come in assorted colors. You can mix different beads such as glass beads with dark red beads to create necklaces and bracelets.
- Cube: Cube beads are blocky. These are ideal if you're looking to make chunky jewelry. Some cubes have the alphabet on them. These alphabet beads can be designed to spell out people's names, for example.
- Flower: As the name suggests, these beads are shaped like flowers. You can find pink rose beads, pewter flower beads, and even lotus beads.
- Oval: Oval beads look like gems or emeralds. You can find them in an assortment of colors.
- Rondelle: Rondelle beads are usually used as spacers to separate several types of stones. Rondelle beads can be multicolored or solid colored, depending on your preferences.
- Round: These beads are round and are useful if you're looking for pearl beads. It's important when threading to remember that round beads can be smaller, so more may be necessary.
- Teardrop: Teardrop beads look like teardrops or daggers. They can be solid-colored or multicolored and made to look like turquoise and blue jade.
- Tube: Tube beads look like tubes, with an opening on either side for the thread to pass through. They come in different lengths.
Yes, depending on the type of jewelry you plan to make, materials is another important consideration to consider when creating your jewelry. You can make all your jewelry from one material, or you can mix and match. Some materials include:
- Acrylic
- Crystal
- Gemstone
- Glass
- Metal
- Pearl
- Plastic
- Stone
The size of your beads will determine the final look and weight of your jewelry as will the color, shape, and material used in your finished product. Bead sizes range from small to quite large. “See the manufacturer site for details.” Seed beads are quite small, while cube beads tend to be larger. Also, remember that glass beads are lighter than stone beads or metal beads. Some size choices include:
- 2–2.9 mm
- 3–3.9 mm
- 4–4.9 mm
- 6–6.9 mm
- 8–8.9 mm
- 10–10.9 mm
- 12–12.9 mm
- 17 mm or more