Dealing With Small Bead Holes

Sometimes when you start a project you get so excited that you just dive into it only to find out that your bead hole doesn’t fit the pin. This is especially true with pearls, fresh water pearls to be exact. And if you force it in, the layers peel away, that’s how delicate pearls are. So, here’s a little technique I learned to do when working with pearls, which I’m sharing with you. All you need are round nose pliers, flush cutter, a spool of .06 (or 22) gauge wire and basic wire wrapping skills.

Step 1: With your .06 wire, insert the bead straight from the spool to minimize wire waste. I leave about less than an inch of wire above then grasp the wire with your round nose pliers and then bend it to create a loop and wrap the tail wire once or twice around the stem, just enough to secure, you’ll be wrapping wire around this later. Cut as close to the stem as possible.

Step 2: Push the bead at the base of the finished loop. Position the tip of the pliers at the base of the other end of the wire then bend to create a loop. Wrap the wire around the stem 2-3 times.

Step 3: Bring the wire to the opposite loop with a slight cascade as part of the design.

Step 4: Start wrapping the wire stem from Step 1 to and cover the initial wrapped wire, this would take 2-3 wraps.

Step 5: Trim the wire as close as you can. Press any excess, protruding wire ends to the wire wrap so it won’t snag skin and/or fabric. If you find the ends of the wire too sharp, file it down with sandpaper.

Comments

Bead Bangle

You may be wondering why I would give away this pattern for free when I can sell it. Well, I'm really not so good with giving (and taking) written instructions. So to be fair, I only sell patterns that I can give accurate instructions on. I rely mostly on pictures, I find them easier to follow. So hopefully the images I included helps too if my written instructions become too confusing. I had to use a dark background so the threads would show. 1. Start with the basic netting technique. String in 147 pieces of seed beads. Pass the thread through the 6th bead from the last. 2. String 5 beads then pass through the sixth bead from the previous row, repeat to the end. 3. Leave 6 beads at the tail. String 8 beads then pass thread through fourth bead from previous row. Repeat until you have a total of 9 rows. 4. String 8 beads then pass the thread through the 6th bead and then pass it through the row you've just finished to ensure the bangle i

Start Off With These Chinese & Taiwanese Dramas

Even before Kdramas, I was already so into Hong Kong movies that I remember writing all the movies I’ve seen on a notebook, which I’ve since lost. Jackie Chan & Jet Li movies were faves, but Star Movies Chinese introduced me to so many others. After watching Gen-X Cops, I fell in love with the gorgeous actors and I’d see anything with Stephen Fung, Nicolas Tse, and Daniel Wu that was on, even ones without subtitles! Oh and also Takeshi Kaneshiro! But at some point, I couldn’t access Star Movies Chinese anymore. I don’t remember exactly if they became unavailable in our country or you had to pay extra for that channel. Whatever it was, it ended my love affair with Hong Kong Movies. Which is okay in a way, since I got too busy with life anyway. And then Meteor Garden happened. They showed it on a local channel and was Filipino dubbed. After that blew up, local channels started showing dubbed Taiwanese dramas. But it wasn’t easy to follow the series since it was on at around 4 in th

The Can Of Worms

With all the things that have been happening lately, it's not unusual to feel anxious and/or depressed. Self-care reminders abound on social media for a reason- more people have become self-aware and are being honest about the state of their mental and emotional health. When I was younger this was something people don't talk about much, I still tiptoe on the topic when discussing with family and friends. You weren't depressed, you were just sad. Truly, our generation and those before us were left to sink or swim, and sadly I've had friends who've sunk and I almost did too. To be honest, there are still times I feel like sinking but I've come up with things to get me out of that mindset whenever it creeps on me. I've listed things that work for me but these are like band aid solutions and not real solutions to treat depression. If you think you need help, please visit the link for a list of helplines to call for free: https://www.therapyroute.com/article/suic

The Breakfast Theory

Search This Blog