A Simple Beaded Keychain for Every Skill Level

Hand made beaded keychains are simple to make and are a great activity for both kids and adults. Many people have created them as fundraisers or as gifts. All you need are large hole beads and alphabet bead beads to spell out a special message. No tools are necessary except for a pair of scissors.

Click here for detailed illustrated directions on How to Make a Beaded Key Chain

A Heritage of Inspiration: Creating Jewelry with Czech Glass Beads

Hello Everyone!

For this blog, I wanted to focus on the beautiful Czech Glass Beads that you can find at Bead Bee. The reason I'm so interested in these beads is because they're linked with my heritage, and I wanted to find out a little bit of history on them.

In essence, Czech Glass Beads were made from the ideas and demands of people all over the world. In the mid 1800s, Czech "sample men", as they called them, would travel the world trying to figure out what kinds of beads people wanted. They took back their notes and sketches to their home factories where the beads were produced. After a while, technological advances made it possible for Bohemia to mass produce pressed-glass beads. As a result, by the 1920s Czechs became the main bead exporters of the world.

I created a memory wire bracelet using turquoise Czech flower glass beads, jet Czech petal beads and tortoise Czech fire polished glass beads. For added detail, I added antique copper spacers. I picked these colors because I haven't seen these colors used together on jewelry. This bracelet can be worn dressed down with a white t-shirt, jeans, and flip flops, or dressed up with that "little black dress" you save for special occasions. Please leave questions and comments to let me know what you think!

Brianna

Brianna is our guest blogger for this Spring/ Summer season - welcome Brianna! Click here to send Brianna message or leave a comment.

Girlfriends & Beads

Beading is such a nice hobby to share with your friends and family. Last Saturday, my beautiful and awesome friends Brianna (our guest blogger), Bethany and I spent the afternoon beading and then went out for a delicious dinner. We talked, laughed and shared ideas.

Bethany made a precious pink lanyard to wear at her new job.

Brianna created a gorgeous Turquoise Flower Cuff Bracelet, see her blog post for details on making this bracelet for yourself (coming soon).

I created a gorgeous pendant necklace featuring a Thai silver rose pendant surrounded by gemstones, you can see it in this blog post: Rose Bouquet Necklace

Tell us how you have fun beading with your friends and loved ones, please leave a comment!

Rose Bouquet Necklace

This Thai silver rose pendant is absolutely exquisite. I wanted to create a sophisticated, garden inspired necklace featuring this rose in a cluster, surrounded by gorgeous gemstone beads that include blue topaz, pink topaz, chrysophrase and rhodonite.

To create this necklace, attach beads and charms to a piece of chains. The rose pendant is attached to the chain with a jump ring and all of the gemstone beads are wire wrapped and attached to the chain as well. I chose beads that were no larger than 6mm so that the rose pendant would remain the focal point of the piece.

When beads are wire wrapped and attached to chain, they dangle elegantly. Using this technique to attach beads to chain can also be used to create earrings.

If you are new to wire wrapping and want to learn how to wire wrap top drilled gemstone beads (mostly tear drop shaped briolettes with the holes drilled horizontally across the top), click here to see illustrated wire wrapping instructions on our Bead Bee website.