Tutorial: Summer Drops

Summer brings so many ideas to life! We wanted to capture the warmth and fun of summer in a piece of jewelry. Reflecting the suns rays, we came up with a simple piece that will amaze your friends when you said you made it yourself. We chose to use the famous Czech Glass for the entire necklace because of the variety of shapes and wide range of colors.

Supplies

• 30-40 22 gauge headpins Buy Online!
• 15-19 4mm beads COLOR A We used Czech Glass 4mm Firepolished Hyacinth
• 15-19 6mm beads COLOR B We used Czech Glass 6mm Crackle Glass Light Topaz Druks
• 15-19 6mm beads COLOR C We used Czech Glass 6mm Firepolished Medium Topaz
• 15-19 8mm beads COLOR D We used Czech Glass 8mm Fluted Firepolished Opaque Red
• 2 18″ pieces of open link or curb chain
• 2 jumprings Buy Online!
• Clasp of your choice See our online selection!

Note: most of our Czech Glass stock is available online, otherwise come in and see our entire selection!

Choosing between 15-19 of each bead color will change the bulkiness of the final necklace – we went with 17, what we felt was a nice Goldilocks amount.

If you already know how to turn a loop, skip ahead to the last steps for assembly. If not, continue to the first part to learn how we are going to turn nice, consistent, round loops!

Directions

1. Start with a scrap piece of 22 gauge wire at least 2″ long or an extra headpin. Grip the end of the wire with the round nose pliers so that the end of the wire is flush with the side of the pliers.
2. Applying pressure with the thumb on your other hand, rotate the pliers to make the loop.
3. Continue until the wire touches itself.
4. Practice a few times on scrap wire until you are comfortable with the size and shape of the loop. The diameter of the loop changes depending on where you hold the wire on the pliers. With the perfect loop, mark where the wire needs to be held on the pliers using a sharpie.
5. Mark where the wire meets at the end of the loop.
6. Using a chain nose, flat nose, or bent nose pliers, straighten out the wire.

Whew! Now that we have the wireworking down, this will be our measuring tool to make a perfect loop in the next steps. Make sure to keep it handy!

Directions

1. For the two pieces of chain, fold them over and find the middle link. If it doesn’t fold perfectly, choose one of the two links that are the middle.
2. Grab a headpin and string one COLOR A bead, go through the middle link of one of the chains, string one COLOR B bead, go through the middle link of the remaining piece of chain, and finally string one COLOR C bead.
3. Holding the headpin so that the beads and chain slide next to each other, bend the headpin right above the COLOR C bead at a 90° angle.
4. Using our measuring device from the first part, measure the length of wire that will be the loop. Make sure that you are measuring the right side of your measuring device so that it’s not too long or short!
5. Cut the headpin at the mark on the measuring wire.
6. Holding the end of the headpin so that it is flush with the side of the pliers at the sharpie mark, make a loop. Pay attention to the direction you are turning; in the photo, the head of the pin was pointing at the beader and then turned away so that the loop would be on top of the bead.
7. When making the loop, you can play with the wire to fix any errors – it is fairly forgiving.
8. Continue making the pins with beads symmetrically out from the first one. There needs to be some space, 2-3 links, between each pin so that the finished piece has a nice drape.
9. Continue until you have 15-19 pins of beads, depending on your preference.
10. Add one COLOR D bead to a head pin and, following steps 5-7, make a turned loop above it.
11. Using a pair of pliers to open the loop, attach to the loop of one of the pins.
12. Do this for all the pins!
13. Before we add a clasp, make sure that the top piece of chain (the one between beads COLOR A and COLOR B) is one to two links SHORTER than the other (the one between beads COLOR B and COLOR C).
14. Use jump rings to attach the clasp of your choice.

Just think of all the different color combinations! We would love to see what you did with the tutorial – feel free to send in a picture of your completed project.