Crafting Close-up: necklace and bracelet

    Recovering from a grandchildren sleepover this weekend, long trip with them to a musical (not having water to drink available in the car), and inventive singing on the way home, I put together another necklace, forgetting to save all the stages for those of you who wanted more details. Hopefully these photos answer questions.

    First, you string the beads, (a bead tray makes it easy) in this case separating the large beads by smaller ones. Check for fit. Then run the beading wire through a silver or gold bead (I break glass ones), a crimp and another metal bead, and loop through the clasp. You reverse and go back through the bead, crimp and bead and a few more major beads in the necklace. Clip wires to hide, an inch plus into the bigger beads. (Click photos to enlarge)

    Use the crimping tool twice at each end, the inside hole with the "tongue" for the first squeeze and then the hole at the point of the tool to round things off. The only difficult part is pulling the wire tight enough so as to leave no gaps in the beading wire. I sometimes use those other tools.
    This method is so fast, that I was also able to make another (already) smocked dress with one seam while the girls watched Babe, the movie. Hannah wanted tie straps, so I used gold bias tape ( there is gold in Tinkerbell's wand), of which I stitched the sides and attached. Of course I double-stitched the dress and attachments as a preventive measure. We made a heart bracelet for one girl and a turquoise necklace (neither pictured) for the other. A fast craft this is!