Lucky me – Artbeads sent over some lovely cubic zirconia beads for me to test out and review!
Normally when I think of CZ, I think of the sparkly white version that is often used as immitation diamonds. But it can be made in a rainbow of colors, so I picked some lavender and olive green [...]

If you’re reading my blog, you probably are into crafts, and very likely jewelry making in particular.
Good news for you – I hoard craft supplies, [especially beads, but I also have a fairly impressive yarn stash]. And I need to destash some of these perfectly lovely items because, well, there’s no more room in my [...]

I just heard about a beading/jewelry making contest that sounds like a lot of fun – the Use the Muse contest over at The Beader’s Muse blog.
Basically, anyone who wants to participate buys a kit with exactly the same beads, and they design a piece using some or all of the kit contents, plus anything [...]

I just got an awesome sample in the mail from artbeads. It’s a 38 mm Swarovski crystal disc bead in a color called copper. YUMMY!
If you are familiar with beads, you probably have seen necklaces made with stone discs (sometimes called donuts) as a centerpiece, maybe with something dangling down, and either chain or a [...]

My first Thursday 13 post! Thursday 13 is a blog meme where you make a list of 13 things.
These are all types of beads I’ve used in my jewelry.
1. freshwater pearls
2. seed beads
3. Swarovski crystal bicones
4. gemstone briolettes
5. crimp beads
6. metal spacer beads
7. faceted round gemstone beads
8. smooth round gemstone beads
9. lampwork glass beads
10. [...]

Beading with Charms: Beautiful Jewelry, Simple Techniques (A Lark Jewelry Book) would be a good book for someone just starting to work with wire. The projects use mostly basic wire techniques such as making simple loops and wrapped loops to attach all kinds of beads and trinkets to earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and more. There are [...]

The colors in this bracelet are very watery, and since I live near the coast, I named it after the ocean.
Available in my etsy shop.

About a million years ago, when I first started making jewelry, I was obsessed with seed beads. It started because I wanted the skinniest strands of beads possible. I would buy tiny beads – size 15 seed beads, and smaller if I could find them – and make multistrand necklaces out of them, as well [...]

Creating Crystal Jewelry with Swarovski: 65 Sparkling Designs with Crystal Beads and Stones by Laura McCabe is filled with beautiful pictures of seed bead and Swarovski crystal jewelry, along with what look like detailed instructions to make each piece.
If you’ve seen Laura’s beadwork and are familiar with her style, what she’s done with Swarovski crystal [...]

I’ve been making a bunch of felt “beads”. I put beads in quotes because they don’t actually have a hole in them, so really they are felt balls – but they can be used just as beads. All you have to do is poke a needle through them to string into necklaces, bracelets, etc. They [...]