As fun as jewelry-making can be, it can get a bit monotonous at times. There are instances wherein you spend hours and hours creating a beaded stretch bracelet, the knots will get tangled up and your beads won’t stay securely in place. These tedious moments can be quite disappointing especially if you’ve spent a huge amount of time putting your beadwork together.
Here we give you ideas on quick jewelry-making hacks that will make your work a little easier when creating your favorite designs.
- Easy wire-wrapping. Wire-wrapping is a very effective technique when making tiaras, encasing pendants and doing other forms of wirework jewelry. In order to make wire-wrapping easy, make sure there isn’t a single bend in the wrong place as it can make your wirework project look all wrong. Using your fingers, sort the kinks out prior to your beadwork. This will help reduce time and guarantee a result that you’ll be satisfied with.
- Remove knots in the beading thread. As a jewelry enthusiast, you’ll find beadwork as an enjoyable hobby. On the flip side, there’s a not so enjoyable part — undoing knots that are twisted when sewn through beads. To minimize excessive knots, make it a point to hold your beadwork and let go of the needle from time to time so it will hang down towards the floor. When you do this, you’ll notice that the needle will slowly unravel itself just like a spinning top. You can easily continue with your beadwork without having to repeat knotting with every stitch.
- Use jewelry glue to attach knots. When knotting any type of stringing material, always tie a double knot. For the knot to stay securely in place, apply jewelry glue into the middle of the knot and pull it tight. This works effectively with Stretch Magic beading cord and also does well with Nymo beading thread and beading wire.
Many jewelry-making issues can be minimized with a little bit of preparation. So, take your time, don’t be in a rush, enjoy the process, and learn the twists and turns in between.
Got more jewelry-making tricks? Be sure to put them in the comments below! And also, stay tuned for part two of our jewelry-making hacks!