Hi, Adrienne from happy hour projects here and today we are going to work on the classic charm bracelet. I get people who say all the time, oh you make it look so easy or I wish I could make handmade jewelry. Well the thing is if nobody has ever shown you how to use the tools it can look intimidating. So I'm here today to make it look a little bit simpler. I'm going to show you the tools. I'm going to show you the findings. I'm going to show you the techniques and once you start making charms you're going to add them to all your jewellery projects.
Come on let's go get started. All right I'd like to give you a quick tour of what we're going to use today and then we'll get to work. Obviously your beads, now I want to talk just quickly about what kind of beads I'm using today. Honestly I'm using a little bit of everything I like I’ve got like a big that's kind of like a value pack of assorted beads here. I like these because you get a lot of different textures, a lot of different finishes, a lot of different variations on the same colour. I'm going with a purple scheme obviously you can see today. I just, it's a nice purchase that you can make, so that you only have to buy one pack or one container of beads if you have to make a purchase. So I would say that's the way to go. Another thing that you can do especially if you're going to kind of make this into a girls night, if everybody brings one kind of bead, then everybody can kind of make the same kind of charm and then everybody can exchange at the end of the night, so that makes for a fun keepsake and it helps you to mix things up, while keeping the cost down.
Otherwise you could really get into this for a lot of different kind of beads, it's just because with the charm bracelets it's nice to have variety, like I mentioned we've got the different finishes, textures, colours. You're going to need a charm bracelet. Now the kind of clasp on it is totally up to you, I’ve got one that's got a lobster clasp here just because that's my preference. It's a little bit more secure but if you like the kind with a toggle that's totally fine, there's really no rules here. The only thing you want to make sure is that the links are big enough that you'll be able to fit jump rings in them later and i'll show you what we're going to do when we do that.
I’ll put that aside, we don't quite need that yet and I mentioned the big beads but we've also got little beads. These are, I’ve got some four millimetre sizes and I’ve got some seed beads a size six oh and some eleven Oh is here and they're all on the kind of the purple range and what these are going to do is act as Stoppers and they're going to kind of set off our focal beads. I've got two inch head pins, I find two inch to be a nice size. You can certainly get three inches, I would not get one inch head pins for a charm bracelet just because I think that's too short. So two inches really the smallest that you want to go with and basically what they are is it's exactly it's a pin and then this head has it's got a flat stopper there at the end so that holds your beads on.
I mentioned the jump rings, I'm using a size seven mm. I think that that's nice for from movement on your charm bracelet a little bit later, so if that's not critical but that's a good size seven millimetre is a pretty good size. I'm going to slide those out of the way, just so that we've got room to work here. Now your tools, the biggest tool that you're going to use today is the round nose pliers and what you're going to be doing with this is you're going to be forming all of the loops on your charms and I’ll show you how that works in just a minute.
What you're also going to be needing is your wire cutters, um these will just snip off those excess ends and you won't use your regular jewellery pliers quite as much, they're going to help you in wire wrapping so that'll be kind of like some assistance there and then it'll also help you tuck in any loose ends but this will be really um your secondary tools today.
So let's just jump right in, now I mentioned that these are quite kind of going to be the stoppers. The smaller beads you can just uh thread those on and the head will keep it secure and what you don't want is on some of these larger beads, especially if you're using bigger beads, sometimes they won't always hold, like you can see this one it's going to come right through I don't know if you can quite tell but this is not going to be secure. So that is why you want a different kind of stopper bead to keep it from going anywhere.
So I'm just going to at random, I'm going to pick a little sparkly here. I've put a round one on and I'm just going to set it off with another sparkly, you don't have to do it that way, I tend to make mine very kind of kind of even, that's just my personality when I'm when I'm working with this but you can really come up with any pattern that you. Like that's like the brilliance of charms, now you saw me get to work here without to explain what I'm doing, I'm just on autopilot, I'm so used to doing these. You want to get your round nose pliers, do a little Bend here, very close to the top bead, you want to leave a little bit of a gap just a couple millimetres there because we're going to be doing some wire wrapping there but what you want to do is just bend it over and then loop that top around.
You're going to loop it around the round part of your pliers here, so what we're doing is we're creating this loop. You want to keep going all the way so that there is a full loop there. Now this tail end, if it's not long enough for you, you may need to use um your jewelry pliers to help you with this but what I'm going to do here is just wrap it around, kind of make like a little like a neck here at the bottom of your loop and you want to wrap it around. There's not any rule as to how many times you got to wrap it, I usually do two or three times, it's just enough to fill that gap that you left. So what we've got now, there's a loop at the top and there's some wire wraps and you've got this tail end. So we're going to cut this tail end off and then at this point you may need to use your pliers just to tighten that little edge down and you've got your first charm.
So there are a lot of different things that you can do as far as designs, do another one, click here, let's see and the key is to kind of make them all different if you can, or if you'd like, I mean I suppose you could make them all the same, just depends on what you like the look of. Dropped one, so what we're doing is you're going to take it around our pliers and tip it back, flip it over the pliers to make our loop, come around, got this little neck here and you want to fill that gap with wire wrapping.
So yeah so this is a basic, basic wire wrap, trim off the excess, all these pliers back and just tighten that up. I'm going to make a few more charms here off-camera, I don't know that you necessarily need to watch me do that and then we'll skip back to how to attach them in just a minute here. All right now if you're just watching for technique, then we're ready to move on here, if you are still if you're crafting along with me and you're making your terms right now then you can go ahead and just pause the video right here, finish making up your charms. You probably want to make about 10 or 12 of them I made12 and now I'm going to show you how to get them attached to your bracelet.
So you want to take a jump ring and the end this is kind of a two-player job, but personally I think so I use my round nose pliers just to hold it steady and then I take my jewellery pliers and twist it open. You know I just want a twist on jump ring, if you try to pry it open then it's a lot harder to squeeze shut than it is to just twist it back shut. And close to the clasp here, just go ahead and string that onto the chain. Want to take a charm and go ahead and add that on and then twist it shut, so you got that on there.
You want to skip a few links before you get to the next one, so we've got the same thing, I'm going to hold it steady with my round nose pliers, twist it open with my main pliers here and I'm going to skip a couple of lengths. I'm going to skip, let's see, one, two or three links, just so that it's nicely spaced. I had my charm on here and go ahead and twist it shut and then you can just keep it one net adding your charms all along as you go.
Come on let's go get started. All right I'd like to give you a quick tour of what we're going to use today and then we'll get to work. Obviously your beads, now I want to talk just quickly about what kind of beads I'm using today. Honestly I'm using a little bit of everything I like I’ve got like a big that's kind of like a value pack of assorted beads here. I like these because you get a lot of different textures, a lot of different finishes, a lot of different variations on the same colour. I'm going with a purple scheme obviously you can see today. I just, it's a nice purchase that you can make, so that you only have to buy one pack or one container of beads if you have to make a purchase. So I would say that's the way to go. Another thing that you can do especially if you're going to kind of make this into a girls night, if everybody brings one kind of bead, then everybody can kind of make the same kind of charm and then everybody can exchange at the end of the night, so that makes for a fun keepsake and it helps you to mix things up, while keeping the cost down.
Otherwise you could really get into this for a lot of different kind of beads, it's just because with the charm bracelets it's nice to have variety, like I mentioned we've got the different finishes, textures, colours. You're going to need a charm bracelet. Now the kind of clasp on it is totally up to you, I’ve got one that's got a lobster clasp here just because that's my preference. It's a little bit more secure but if you like the kind with a toggle that's totally fine, there's really no rules here. The only thing you want to make sure is that the links are big enough that you'll be able to fit jump rings in them later and i'll show you what we're going to do when we do that.
I’ll put that aside, we don't quite need that yet and I mentioned the big beads but we've also got little beads. These are, I’ve got some four millimetre sizes and I’ve got some seed beads a size six oh and some eleven Oh is here and they're all on the kind of the purple range and what these are going to do is act as Stoppers and they're going to kind of set off our focal beads. I've got two inch head pins, I find two inch to be a nice size. You can certainly get three inches, I would not get one inch head pins for a charm bracelet just because I think that's too short. So two inches really the smallest that you want to go with and basically what they are is it's exactly it's a pin and then this head has it's got a flat stopper there at the end so that holds your beads on.
I mentioned the jump rings, I'm using a size seven mm. I think that that's nice for from movement on your charm bracelet a little bit later, so if that's not critical but that's a good size seven millimetre is a pretty good size. I'm going to slide those out of the way, just so that we've got room to work here. Now your tools, the biggest tool that you're going to use today is the round nose pliers and what you're going to be doing with this is you're going to be forming all of the loops on your charms and I’ll show you how that works in just a minute.
What you're also going to be needing is your wire cutters, um these will just snip off those excess ends and you won't use your regular jewellery pliers quite as much, they're going to help you in wire wrapping so that'll be kind of like some assistance there and then it'll also help you tuck in any loose ends but this will be really um your secondary tools today.
So let's just jump right in, now I mentioned that these are quite kind of going to be the stoppers. The smaller beads you can just uh thread those on and the head will keep it secure and what you don't want is on some of these larger beads, especially if you're using bigger beads, sometimes they won't always hold, like you can see this one it's going to come right through I don't know if you can quite tell but this is not going to be secure. So that is why you want a different kind of stopper bead to keep it from going anywhere.
So I'm just going to at random, I'm going to pick a little sparkly here. I've put a round one on and I'm just going to set it off with another sparkly, you don't have to do it that way, I tend to make mine very kind of kind of even, that's just my personality when I'm when I'm working with this but you can really come up with any pattern that you. Like that's like the brilliance of charms, now you saw me get to work here without to explain what I'm doing, I'm just on autopilot, I'm so used to doing these. You want to get your round nose pliers, do a little Bend here, very close to the top bead, you want to leave a little bit of a gap just a couple millimetres there because we're going to be doing some wire wrapping there but what you want to do is just bend it over and then loop that top around.
You're going to loop it around the round part of your pliers here, so what we're doing is we're creating this loop. You want to keep going all the way so that there is a full loop there. Now this tail end, if it's not long enough for you, you may need to use um your jewelry pliers to help you with this but what I'm going to do here is just wrap it around, kind of make like a little like a neck here at the bottom of your loop and you want to wrap it around. There's not any rule as to how many times you got to wrap it, I usually do two or three times, it's just enough to fill that gap that you left. So what we've got now, there's a loop at the top and there's some wire wraps and you've got this tail end. So we're going to cut this tail end off and then at this point you may need to use your pliers just to tighten that little edge down and you've got your first charm.
So there are a lot of different things that you can do as far as designs, do another one, click here, let's see and the key is to kind of make them all different if you can, or if you'd like, I mean I suppose you could make them all the same, just depends on what you like the look of. Dropped one, so what we're doing is you're going to take it around our pliers and tip it back, flip it over the pliers to make our loop, come around, got this little neck here and you want to fill that gap with wire wrapping.
So yeah so this is a basic, basic wire wrap, trim off the excess, all these pliers back and just tighten that up. I'm going to make a few more charms here off-camera, I don't know that you necessarily need to watch me do that and then we'll skip back to how to attach them in just a minute here. All right now if you're just watching for technique, then we're ready to move on here, if you are still if you're crafting along with me and you're making your terms right now then you can go ahead and just pause the video right here, finish making up your charms. You probably want to make about 10 or 12 of them I made12 and now I'm going to show you how to get them attached to your bracelet.
So you want to take a jump ring and the end this is kind of a two-player job, but personally I think so I use my round nose pliers just to hold it steady and then I take my jewellery pliers and twist it open. You know I just want a twist on jump ring, if you try to pry it open then it's a lot harder to squeeze shut than it is to just twist it back shut. And close to the clasp here, just go ahead and string that onto the chain. Want to take a charm and go ahead and add that on and then twist it shut, so you got that on there.
You want to skip a few links before you get to the next one, so we've got the same thing, I'm going to hold it steady with my round nose pliers, twist it open with my main pliers here and I'm going to skip a couple of lengths. I'm going to skip, let's see, one, two or three links, just so that it's nicely spaced. I had my charm on here and go ahead and twist it shut and then you can just keep it one net adding your charms all along as you go.