Beginners guide to start making your own jewellery (at home)

Your beginners guide to start making your own jewellery at home can be as simple as stringing some beads together. Or can be more complicated using metal clays to fashion your own jewellery pendants.

If you have never tried Jewelry making then the simplest projects are using beaded jewellery.

Beaded Jewelry making -It’s amazing what you can do with Beads, string, wire and some hard creative work! Beading using a stretchy cord or threads like nylon- stretchy cord is great for kids, basically threading beads over cord and closing with a knot. To take this up a step you need to learn how to string using nylon with metal findings this will give a more professional look to your jewelry. You can go onto using wire to wrap beads as well have a look below at some of the pendants I have created using wire wrapping.
Macrame -If you were a child of the 70’s you will remember this! You can make jewellery using knots – that’s how most friendship bracelets are made.
Bead Weaving -basically weaving beads either with or without a loom.
Kumihimo – this is an ancient Japanese form of braiding using ribbon or cord.
Soutache – using soutache cord to sew beads onto and create jewellery
Crochet Jewelry making – if you are good at crochet you can also thread beads onto cotton or wire and crochet them into jewellery.

Table of Contents

Macrame Jewellery making

If you are just beginning and don’t want to have to buy lots of tools then Macrame Jewelry making is the first one try it’s amazing what you can do.

Here is a great book to introduce you to the world of Knotting and Braiding Jewelry it has lots of great 5 star reviews as well.

Once you get the hang of the basics of forming knots then you are onto a winner.

This is my all-time favourite book on Knotted Jewelry and if you want something specific to Chinese knots this is such a fabulous book the projects are just gorgeous see for yourself click this link or the image.

My favourite place to buy Beading supplies has to be Beadaholique the amount they have is just staggering they also do kits as well so if you wanted to get someone Crafty something as a present for Christmas or a Birthday then I highly recommend purchasing from Beadaholique.

Here is a fabulous selection of Macrame kits – what about the one with the arrow that’s unusual. If you want to see what you get with the Arrow Macrame Bracelet then check it out here.

Beaded Jewellery Making

Two of my most favourite book for making Beaded jewellery at home is this one available from Amazon as it goes into detail on different Beaded Jewelry techniques and different projects you can try you can find out what’s in the book by clicking here for the Jean Powers book or here for Dorothy Woods book one of the images below

What do you need to start making your own jewellery at home?

Again my go-to resource for Jewelry making kits for making Beaded Jewelry is Beadaholique have look at the different kits you could buy here.

My personal favourite is this one here from Beadsmith – I bought this one as my first basic set of tools. What I would say is buy what you can afford you can always upgrade in the future.

Beadsmith Deluxe jewellery ergonomic toolkit

If you want to upgrade from the basic Tools then Lindstrom is the top quality tools to buy. I bought a set for my mother as she was really interested in Jewelry making as well. She doesn’t have such great grip due to arthritis so these tools are fantastic for her she loves these tools.

Here is a selection of ones you can buy from Beadaholique. If you are just starting out go with Beadsmith unless you can afford Lindstrom – it won’t be wasted money that’s for sure!

You can also buy them on Amazon but I would be really careful and try and buy them directly from a Jewelry making store as they are a lot of fakes around.

What kind of Beads can I start to use to start making your own jewellery?

If you are not wanting to spend a lot of money then one of the best places you can do is to the charity shops or garage sales and pick up second-hand cosmetic jewellery that you can repurpose the beads from.

Make sure though that there are no cracks or chips or flaws on the beads and of course you need to like them!

It’s amazing what you can pick up – even some semi-precious stones which you can wire wrap like I have done if you look at my picture below.

What do you need to make Bead and wire to start making your own jewellery

Along with beads you need to buy stringing material and whats called findings and metal wire if you want to wire wrap any beads. ( you can also make your own finding using wire )

What are Findings in Jewellery making?

Findings ( don’t ask me why they are called findings ) attach the string ( loose term for whatever you choose to string your beads with) and the clasps they help to finish your jewelry off and are usually made of metal.

Other items you need

Needles
Paper clips to stop your beads falling off the end of your string
Storage boxes for your beads and findings

Earring finding
Necklace finding

Different findings to buy include

Clasps
jump/ split rings
Cord ends for cord or ribbon
End cones or bead caps to dress up your beads
Crimps
Calottes to cover your knots at the beginning and end of your string

Ok, one of the first things I purchased I should have said this earlier was a massive tray – why?

Because believe me you don’t want to drop beads especially seed beads which are the teeny tiny ones trying to find them off the floor or carpet is a huge pain the behind!

This one would do the job with a tea towel on it or you can buy as specifically designed beading tray. –

If you want to make your own Wire pendants – wrapping your own beads in wireframes then this is THE book to buy it has lots of projects from simple to intricate designs and I have tried a few of them.