The last Tourmaline Bracelet

 

Colorful tourmaline Beads

Tourmaline Love

I really enjoyed making the tourmaline earrings and bracelet for my friend Tiffany.  I started dabbling with seed beads in an effort to bring down the cost of my hobby. Seriously, you can burn through $200 worth of stone beads and silver in an afternoon if you aren’t careful. I like silver, stone beads and pearls. Copper is cool too and I adore gold but I just can’t afford to go that route.

At any rate, I’ve got all of these seed beads,  patterns and kits just waiting to be made, but they just really aren’t me. Even if I ever finish making them, it’s doubtful that I’d wear most of them. I still haven’t worn Anne or Grace,  and while I have worn Waves of Pearls, that one is missing and it kills me. So much work, just gone.

But Stone beads? That’s my thing and once I got started with the bracelet, I just couldn’t stop myself. The three central beads in Tiffany’s bracelet, came off of a strand of beads that I bought well over ten years ago. It  was one of the first  strands that I purchased. The holes are deceptively small and many of them aren’t drilled straight so the beads have sat in my box collecting dust.  As it turns out, the DMC floss was the perfect fit for the beads, so in to a  necklace they went.

multi color tourmaline necklace

I love all the different colors of the beads.  The  strand of smaller tourmaline beads  that I used for Tiffany’s bracelet had multiple colors on it as well. I used quite a few of the pink and green stone beads to make her gift, so I had to add more beads to make a second bracelet long enough for me to wear. I went with silver..

I really like the simplicity of these pieces and I know that I’ll wear them over and over again. They also re-sparked my love of jewelry making. I have one more bracelet on my bead board that is almost done, it uses the remaining beads on the strand. It’s a beautiful range of blues and yellows, and is possibly my favorite of the three.

I’ve decided to go through my stash and make a few more similar bracelets from some of the other strands of gemstone beads that I have. I want to be able to layer different colors to coordinate with whatever I’m wearing that day. I should have the other one up tomorrow evening!

Tourmaline Bracelet and Pearl Earrings, by me.

I finished the tourmaline, bead bracelet. I kept it simple, just how my friend likes it and added a pair of earrings to go with.

She absolutely loves them! The metallic DMC floss was a real bear to work with but I’m glad I stuck it out.  I so love the drape that comes with knotted beads as opposed to flexible beading wire.

If you decide to use the DMC floss with tiny gemstone beads, use lots of wax. LOTS. I made this bracelet quite a few times and each time I started over I had to go through and cut each bead off…. Which is probably why so many people just go the route of beading wire.  Also, as soon as you get the bead off the needle, if it seems like it isn’t going to move smoothly, take it off and try another bead.  If it snags at all you run the risk of fraying the thread.

Happy Beading!

Tourmaline Bracelets

hand made gemstone jewelry in the works

I love tourmaline. Tourmaline comes in so many pretty colors, it’s an easy to love gemstone.

Between other projects, I’ve been working on two bracelets for a very dear friend of mine. She adores a bracelet that I made for myself several years ago so I wanted to recreate something similar for her. My version, which I don’t think I ever posted about is made with pearls, faceted sapphire beads and copper colored metallic DMC floss.

Crazy right? I love how the Metallic thread looks with the sapphire stones. It’s a very simple bracelet. I braided the thread so that the gemstone beads are spaced evenly and  that resulted in a very delicate bracelet. Very Delicate, I’m sure that it’s going to come apart on me one day. So sure, that I told myself that I would never, ever sell a bracelet made with DMC floss. Embroidery floss isn’t really designed for beading.

Which is why I say I’ve been “working” on these two beaded bracelets. I’m not sure if the holes are smaller in the tourmaline beads  or what, but I’ve restrung these two multiple times. The beads are just shredding the floss which really isn’t all that surprising. Also noted, the DMC floss has a lot of give to it. So once I knotted them, I gave it a little tug to straighten it out and the thread stretched quite a bit.

I love the drape that comes with knotted gemstone beads and pearls so I really don’t want to string it on wire and crimp it.  I’m not giving up just yet, before I throw in the towel I’m going to give it one more go with copious amounts of bees wax. I’ve also decided to switch the metal beads from copper to silver and I hope to have it done in the next few days. I’ll post a photo as soon as I do!

As a side note, I love the center bead on the top strand. I bought the tourmaline beads some time back in either 01 or 02. It was one of the very first strands of beads that I purchased, and the center bead above is the only watermelon tourmaline bead on the strand. If she weren’t such a fabulous friend, I wouldn’t part with it.

At any rate, this is what my creative process looks like. It’s pretty messy and often times I end up with something completely different than what I set out to make. I’ve never been one to plan stuff out on paper…