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…