It's new on Perles and Co: recycled glass beads are now available in twenty different shapes and colors. The glass beads from the Jablonex brand located in Europe are made of 100% recycled glass. This is a first step towards reducing the ecological footprint of DIY. For an even more eco-friendly bracelet, you can also choose from gold filled recycled gold primers. For the wire on the other hand, it will be better to stay on sheathed wire, because the beads are very heavy and you will need a strong wire.
You will need 2 bags of 6x5 mm glass beads to make a 15 to 20 cm long bracelet. Of course, for a lighter bracelet, you can mix these beads with others: white lava stone beads, polymer clay or ceramic heishi, or gemstone heishi. In this case take only one bag of glass beads. You can find some suggestions for beads in the variation section at the bottom of the page.
To give the bracelet even more style, we used leftover gold washers from another tutorial. This is the gold beaded bracelet. Feel free to use your leftover material in your new projects. We try to offer you as much as possible solutions to optimize your purchases by reusing the remaining material. If you have a large stock of a reference that you don't know what to do with, you can suggest it in the question section below and we will note it for possible future tutorials.
Important note: When you finish the bracelet, remember to keep some "slack " because the beads are square, if they are too tight, they will tend to make a straight line and they will not make a nice rounding, which would be annoying for a bracelet. This information is also noted in the steps.
Cut 35 cm of wire and thread a squeeze bead, a wire guard and the closed ring. Thread the wire back through the squeeze bead. Keep about 5 cm of the wire end and crush the crush bead with crush bead pliers, or alternatively, with flat pliers. Pull on the wire to check that the bead has blocked the wire. Find here a video to learn how to crush pearls to crush.
String your beads by passing the two ends of the wire through them. It's better to hide the end of the wire in the beads than to cut it, because if the wire ever gets loose or the bead to be crushed breaks, you will have enough wire to repair the bracelet.
We have strung the following beads for a 16 cm long bracelet, adjust the number of beads according to your wrist size: 3 clear beads, 1 brown bead, 1 washer, 1 brown bead, 1 clear bead, 1 brown bead, 1 washer, 1 brown bead, 1 clear bead, 1 brown bead, 1 washer, 1 brown bead, 4 clear beads, then string the same beads in reverse order to make the bracelet symmetrical.
To finish the bracelet, do the same as in step 1, putting the clasp in place of the closed ring. Then, slip the wire through the beads and cut off the excess.
Open a ring with two pliers, slip the charm into it and then pass the ring between the 4 pearls in the center and close it. Here is a video to show you how to open and close a ring in costume jewellery.
You have a question about this tutorial? Ask it to our team and the people who have already tested it. The Perles & Co community is here to help you!
Credits
Perles & Co, Internet & E-Commerce company [07/09/2021] Any reproduction, representation, adaptation, in any form whatsoever, even partial, is prohibited, except for reproduction for private use not intended for collective use, representation in the family circle (art. L 122-5 CPI) and online publishing on condition that the source is mentioned and a link is included to the corresponding page of our site www.perlesandco.com.
