3 tips for stringing beads quickly

In summer, we love pearl bracelets on our wrists. But stringing lots of pearls on elastic or jade wire can be monotonous, time-consuming and tedious, especially when they're so small.

Here'sa tip: do you know how many beads you'll need to make a bracelet or necklace? For a 19 cm bracelet, you'll need 96 round 2 mm beads. For a 51 cm necklace, you'll need 85 6 mm beads. Refer to our correspondence chart to find out how many beads to use for your project.

Discover 3 tips to make this activity much faster and end the chore of stringing beads.

1 - Use beads on wire

This is undoubtedly the quickest solution: the beads arrive directly mounted on a wire. No need to grab them one by one. Just slide them onto your new support.

This technique works perfectly with :

• Freshwater pearls (baroque, olive, round...)
• Heishi pearls in mother-of-pearl or stone
• Natural stone pearls (amethyst, apatite, rhodonite...)

How do I go about it?

1. Choose your support wire(elastic, nylon or cable) and check that it's long enough.
2. Slide the first bead from the original wire into your new wire.
3. Continue, aligning beads as you go.

Simple, quick, efficient, and your beads stay in the right order!

💡 A little tip: check the bead hole diameter before ordering your wire. The smaller the bead, the thinner the hole. Consult our guide on which elastic thread to choose to make the right choice.

2 - Use a bead threading needle

Speedle Needles are specially designed for quickly threading seed beads onto wire. They feature a large folding eye and a barbed end.
Use this twisted-wire needle to thread beads with nylon, silk and Kevlar threads, monofilaments or elastic cords, and create fantastic DIY costume jewelry. But beware, it's not suitable for bead weaving.

How do I use a beading needle?

• To thread beads onto your thread, knot one end of the thread and pass the other through the folding eye of the beading needle.
• Then quickly push the barbed end in and out of the bead container several times, pausing occasionally to push the beads over the eye and onto your thread.
• Once the first set of beads has been threaded over the eye, the eye collapses and clings very well to the thread. For this reason, twisted-wire needles are perfect for threading larger materials such as ribbon, silk and thread.

It's the ideal tool for seed beads. The needle works particularly well with smaller sizes such as 15/0.

Tiffanie tested these bead threading needles for you and managed to make a multi-strand bracelet quickly and easily.

3 - Use a bead mill

This little device is made up of three parts: the base, the bead mill which holds the beads and turns on the base, and the hook needle with a large eye, over which you thread a thread.

How to use the bead mill

1. Fill the mill with beads.
2. Point your hook downwards.
3. Turn the mill counter-clockwise at a fairly high speed.
4. Depending on the angle, you'll see the beads rise up the hook.
5. Once the hook shank is full, stop turning, taking care not to let the beads slip off.
6. Slide the beads onto the thread, then start again.

Pierre and Elisa have tested it for you in a crash test to find out which beadswork best with the bead mill. Round beads, faceted beads, Heishi beads or seed beads? Find out which beads to use in this video.

The downside is that it tends to send beads all over the place when you first try it out. You'll need to learn to tame it before you'll be able to make lots of DIY jewelry very quickly.