As you know I do challenge myself to a variety of crafts.  It’s probably no surprise to you therefore that I also do have a go at jewellery making once in a while.  Well, that’s exactly what I did today.

Having bought a small necklace kit earlier in the year, and summarily chucked in the pile of “things to do/enjoy”, I recently re-discovered it whilst having a “tidy” before I started working (this obviously means that I was just hunting for something else and was having to put things away in order to find it).  Still, now that it was found, it’d would have been a shame to relegate it back to the “to-do” pile, so I cut opened it up and tipped it all out on the desk.

The kit contained the components to make a simple floating crystal style necklace.  There were some components that you’ll probably recognise but there were a couple that I thought that I would explain as they are key to this style of necklace.

Beadalon Wire (0.018″ (very thin) 7 strand) – this is a flexible coated “thread” made from 7 strands of thin wire and then coated with what looks like a plastic tubing.  This type of wire is great for creating a floating style necklace as it retains it’s strength without sacrificing the flexibility.

Crimp Beads – these are little bead-like tubes that are squashed onto the Beadalon wire at a given point in order to hold the beads in place to create that “floating” style.  These can be squashed with flat nose pliers, which was recommended in the instructions, however I have a pair of crimp pliers which double-squish the crimp bead so that it almost looks as if it is another bead rather than a random flat piece of metal.

Crimp Covers – these metal beads have an opening on one side.  These covers are slid onto a crushed crimp bead and then closed around it in order to have a tidy finish, especially at the clasp end of the necklace.

The rest of the kit was made up of a star shaped metal charm and some Czech Crystal bicone beads (which are gorgeous, obviously).

I did add a couple of my own glass beads as extra dangles at the focal point of the necklace, just to give it a little more impact and weight.  I threaded these onto head pins and then attached them to the star charm with a jump ring.

I finished off this project by creating a pair of simple drop earrings with beads that coordinated with the focal point of the necklace.

Anyway, there’s not much more to say about this one, it was fairly simple to put together and very relaxing to do.

Here is a small gallery of the finished pieces (you can click the image for a larger preview).

As ever, if you have any questions or comments about this post, please feel free to use the comments box at the bottom of this page and I will endeavour to reply to you as soon as I can.

Many thanks for reading.

John :)