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Showing posts from March, 2017

It's time to upgrade your childhood friendship bracelet!

Some of my best memories are from being a day camp counselor. Most of all, I loved the camp crafts, especially making friendship bracelets. Fast forward several  many years, and I still love friendship bracelets, but now with a more grownup twist. Enter the Beadalon Tying Station - the perfect tool to use to make both old school and more "grown up" friendship bracelets. In this week's Facebook Live Video , I talked about using the Tying Station with both B-Lon Bead Weaving Thread and Beadalon Bead Stringing Wire to fancy up your friendship bracelets. I love using the Tacky Mat to hold down my Tying Station. Incidentally, the Tacky Mat is great for holding down the Tassel Maker , too. The B-Lon is a great thread to use since it is strong, knots up well, and doesn't stretch. And the Silver Color and Gold Color Beadalon Bead Stringing Wire makes the insides of crystals sparkle like you wouldn't believe. Missed the Video? You can catch up on it and all of th

Flat Memory Wire Findings Facebook Live Recap

  This week, I continued our series on Facebook Live on Memory Wire. The first installation was back in December when I talked generally about Memory Wire , including how to use my favorite Magnetic Claps , but today I focused specifically on FLAT Memory Wire . The fun thing about the Flat Memory Wire is that there is a whole program of findings and components that go along with it.  There are definitely benefits to using Flat Memory Wire including when you string up the components, because the Wire is flat, the components won't spin around. The tops are always on top!  There are three glue on components - a circle, an oval and a rectangle in Silver Plated and Gold Color. These are perfect for gluing all of the flat backed crystal and cab components that you have in your beading stash. The best glue to use is the Bead Fix 2-Part Epoxy , but a good alternative is Bead Fix Gel . In the video, I show how to glue size SS29 crystals and a really pretty square checkerboard cryst

Color of the Year 2017: Greenery

Spring is officially here! What perfect way to welcome the season with the Pantone Color of the Year GREENERY (PANTONE 15-0343).  Per Pantone's website:  "A refreshing and revitalizing shade, Greenery is symbolic of new beginnings. Greenery is a fresh and zesty yellow-green shade that evokes the first days of spring when nature’s greens revive, restore and renew. Illustrative of flourishing foliage and the lushness of the great outdoors, the fortifying attributes of Greenery signals consumers to take a deep breath, oxygenate and reinvigorate." At the Creativation Show (formerly known as CHA - Craft & Hobby Association) in Phoenix earlier this year, we had a full display of vibrant green beaded jewelry against a green backdrop. It was definitely soothing to showcase something so lively during the cold weather, even in Phoenix!  The bracelets on display featured a variety of jewelry making techniques such as bead stringing, crochet, wire-wrappin

Soumak Wire Weaving Technique with Wyatt White

Featured on our Facebook Live show.  If you have joined us for our Facebook Live shows on our Facebook page , thank you! We truly do enjoy sharing "real-time" moments with you and have the chance to show you the new and exciting jewelry making materials we have to offer.  Wyatt White demonstrated this interesting technique with Beadalon German Style Wire and Artistic Wire in last week's  Facebook Live Video  presentation: He showed the basics here, and if you’re interested in kicking it up a notch, this is a great  video  that Wyatt did for our friends from Beadaholique that will take you through step by step: Wyatt mentions many different combinations of Wire to use for this technique, but a good place to start is with 16 gauge German Style Wire as the base wire and 24 Gauge Artistic Wire for the wrapping. After you’ve mastered the basics, you can switch it up as you’d like. Try using half round wire to wrap, use contrasting color