How to make an elastic heishi necklace?
Nothing could be easier than a piece of jewelry made of elastic thread! No need for a clasp. This is a perfect tutorial for beginners who want to make jewelry for the first time. Plus, it's a creative activity that will work for adults and children as young as 8 years old. You can organize a creative summer workshop that will satisfy everyone.
However, there are a few rules that must be followed to prevent your necklace from breaking quickly. First of all, you should know that even if the elastic thread is very practical, it is also a thread that does not have a very long life, regardless of the brand or type of elastic thread. You will be able to keep it for an average of 2 to 5 years depending on the use you make of it and the way you store the jewel.
The plastics used for these wires deteriorate with heat, UV, contact with chemicals and alcohol present in cosmetics, sea salt, chlorine, limestone, etc. If you want to keep your necklace as long as possible, don't bathe with it, don't store it in direct sunlight, but rather in a jewellery box in the shade (but all this is also valid for jewellery in general). Otherwise, just assume that you will need to replace the wire regularly, every 2 years for example.
You will also need to pre-stretch the wire before you make the final knot. Most of these wires will relax a bit after a few days. The best thing is to force them to stretch beforehand so that you don't have this concern once the collar is finished.
In this tutorial, we used ceramic heishi beads. We also have polymeric heishi beads which are more colorful, lighter and available in different sizes. It all depends on your jewelry preferences. Colorful or handmade?
