pearl bracelet

For this week's blog I decided to do a tutorial on how to make a pearl bracelet.  For materials you will need craft pearl beads, they can be any size, or even multiple sizes. I found these at Michael's for about two dollars. The next thing you will need is a silver chain, relatively small, to tie the beads onto. This can also be found at Michael's.  To tie the beads to the silver chain you can use any kind of wire, make sure it is white/silver and is easy to shape. The last material you need is bead pliers, at Michael's where you can buy them for under five dollars.
First, measure the length of chain by wrapping it around your wrist, leaving some room.  Disconnect the length of your bracelet from the chain by using your bead pliers.
cut about three fourths of an inch of wire if you are using point twenty-three plastic pearl beads. Place the a pearl bead through the wire, then for the hardest spot, take the bead pliers and holding one side of the wire, wrap the other side with the wire up around the top of the bead, leaving room for the bead to be tied to the chain.
Now with your bead secured onto the wire, with extra room for the wire to be tied, take the bead pliers and loop the wire around one of the chain's loops, making sure the wire is tight against the chain loop, keep wrapping the wire until there is not any more wire to wrap. To make sure the wire does not poke you while you are wearing it, press down on the wire, wherever it ends on the chain with your pliers, making it flat instead of upright and sharp.
An alternative to tying the wire two times is to buy headpin wire, this is wire that has one end flat, making it so that when you put the pearl of the wire, it will sit on one end, with this you will not have to tie the wire up to the top so that the pearl bead will not slip off. I would have used these head pin wires, but I have trouble finding them at craft stores.
For me, the process of tying a single bead onto the chain takes about five minutes, so instead of connecting a pearl to every single chain, I did it every four chains. When you have finished tying to pearls, you can either take a lobster clasp and bend the wire with your bead pliers, or simply make the chain large enough to be able to slip your hand through the bracelet, but not loose enough that it will fall off.


Happy Crafting!