Seashell necklace for a young lady

It was a long hot summer here in New England this year.  At the end of the summer, I was asked to make this shell necklace for a young girl from the shells she and her Mom gathered on the beach.  We chose light blue cord to string them up, and here's how I did it:

Cut three cords to about a yard each.  I knotted them all together at one end and set them aside.

   

Choose the shells that you want to use and lay them out in order, more or less.  I chose shells that already had a hole in the top curve, and if need be, enlarged it slightly with a thick needle tool.

Always working with two strands at a time, overhand knot them for a few inches past your initial knot.  Alternate which strands you are using.  When you get to the section where you want your shells to be, string one cord through the hole and knot that cord with one of the two free cords.  Continue this process, alternating which of the three cords you are using, and using two at a time.

Add some knots without shells to match the first side.  Tie both ends to the loops on a magnetic clasp.  The cords will be much longer than you need, so you will have to trim the ends.  I like magnetic clasps for young children.  If you ever needed to get the necklace off quickly. All it takes is a tug. 



This post contains affiliate links: Beadaholique

Copyright 2018 Cyndi Lavin. All rights reserved. Not to be reprinted, resold, or redistributed for profit. May be printed out for personal use or distributed electronically provided that entire file, including this notice, remains intact.

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This post contains affiliate links: Beadaholique

Russian leaves - bead weaving tutorials

For quite awhile now, Russian leaves have been all over Pinterest.  I fell in love with them, but it took several months before I had the time to devote to them.  I want to give a special shout out to Linda of Linda's Crafty Inspirations blog.  She has posted oodles of examples and freely shares her color charts, which is a great way to get started!  In the examples that I'm showing you, I plan to use the ones above as pendants, and the ones shown below as earrings. 

I have looked at a lot of different instructions for how to make these, and it comes down to just picking one that makes the most sense to you.  It is a bit hard to follow a chart unless you are already familiar with diagonal peyote stitch, but I followed Linda's advice and turned to Jill Wiseman.  You can download Jill's tutorial here, but before you tackle it, watch her instructional video.  If you follow along, you will pick this up in no time.

Diagonal peyote is really not that hard...you need to decrease on one edge and increase on the other edge each row, and once you understand how to do this, the rest is easy easy easy!  Jill's video will show you how. 

When you're finished stitching, you'll find that the leaves lose their shapes very quickly, no matter how tight a tension you use.  I decided to dip mine in Future acrylic floor polish to help maintain the shape.  I dipped each one twice, letting them dry in between...first on the convex side of a spoon and the second time on the concave side. 

Copyright 2018 Cyndi Lavin. All rights reserved. Not to be reprinted, resold, or redistributed for profit. May be printed out for personal use or distributed electronically provided that entire file, including this notice, remains intact.

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This post contains some affiliate links: Beadaholique and Jesse James Beads

Ruffled peyote stitch rope necklace - a tutorial

Here is my last beaded rope necklace for the summer!  I'm going to take a couple of weeks off to regroup for the Fall season.  It's been a really long, hot, and emotionally difficult summer for me, and I am deeply in need of some down time to just think and feel. 

There are many ways to make a ruffled rope like this, but the way I prefer is probably the easiest!  On a long but manageable length of beading thread, string enough size 8/0 seed beads to be about 1 1/2 inch longer than the length you'd like the ruffled piece to be.  Remember that you will be adding cones, more beads, and a clasp when you choose the length.  For your first stitching row, do plain peyote stitch using the same color of size 8/0 beads.

For your second stitching row, choose a different color of size 8/0 beads and add two beads in each stitch.  This will cause the rope to begin to twist. 

For your last row, peyote stitch with size 11/0 seed beads, one between each pair of 8/0s from the previous row and one between each stitch in the previous row. 

Stitch a small loop on each end of the rope.  This tutorial that I wrote on herringbone ropes has the instructions for how to make the loops on the ends of the rope with seed beads.  For this current necklace, though, I used beading wire instead of regular 18 gauge wire. 

Use a crimp to attach beading wire to each loop.  Add a bead cone and as many beads as you'd like to make the straps the proper length. 

Add a clasp and a tab to the ends with two more crimps.  Use crimp covers to hide the crimps. 

 

This post contains affiliate links: Beadaholique

Copyright 2018 Cyndi Lavin. All rights reserved. Not to be reprinted, resold, or redistributed for profit. May be printed out for personal use or distributed electronically provided that entire file, including this notice, remains intact.

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This post contains affiliate links: Beadaholique and Jesse James Beads

An indespiral bead rope necklace

More spirals, more beadweaving, more ropes!  Summer is almost over, and I am trying to fit in as many more ropes as possible.  I've been super-busy with other projects, so this one was probably the wrong one to choose, because it takes longer than some to achieve the length, and it also takes more time than some to get to the point where the alternating rows of stitching become automatic.  But I love it so very much that I couldn't resist :-)

Aleta Ford Baker came up with the Indespiral and wrote about it in Bead&Button magazine back in October 2005.  "Inde" stands for increase-decrease, which is what allows the peyote stitching to end up with this awesome spiral.  It is also extremely stiff and can be used to form free-standing pieces, which is what inspired Aleta in the first place.  You can find her tutorial in her Etsy shop, Aleta Ford Baker Design!

Anyway, I stitched a long tube using two colors of size 11/0 round Czech seed beads, and then added the cones, chains, and clasps the same way as I showed you here in a previous tutorial. 

I'm getting close to the end of the summer!  Soon I'll have to start thinking about Fall projects...


This post contains affiliate links: Beadaholique

Copyright 2018 Cyndi Lavin. All rights reserved. Not to be reprinted, resold, or redistributed for profit. May be printed out for personal use or distributed electronically provided that entire file, including this notice, remains intact.