Festive Pearl Bracelets

Festive Pearl Bracelets

Hi everyone. It's Dominique again, and today I'm going to share with you two elegant Christmas-themed bracelets, made with the green, purple, and white pearl beads from the Just Bead It Christmas Range. Perfect for gift-giving! 

Just Bead It products used:

• JBXM20 - green glass pearl beads
• JBZ65 - white small glass pearl beads
• JBXM06 - purple glass pearl beads
• JBXM51 - small ivory glass pearl beads

Additional products used:

• beading wire
• crimp beads
• silver crimp covers
• 5-strand silver bar ends
• silver lobster clasps
• silver extender chains
• wire cutters
• crimping pliers

To begin, start by attaching a crimp bead and crimp cover to the middle loop of the bar end, leaving a short tail of wire to thread through the beads later. Do the same with both of the outer loops (the 1st and 5th loops), so that you have three strands of beading wire ready to work with. Since the pearls are fairly large, I used a five-strand bar end as opposed to the three-strand bar end, because I think the pearls need a larger width so they fit nicely against the wrist without being squashed together as they might be with a 3-strand finding.

Secondly, you can now begin to thread on the first few beads. I have started with the purple bracelet, so begin threading the JBXM06 pearl beads onto the middle wire, making sure to tuck the excess wire through the first couple of beads. Continue threading the glass pearl beads until you have reached the desired length.

Make sure to tuck the excess wire through the first couple of beads

Next, you can now start to thread the pearls on either side. For the purple bracelet, I chose the ivory/cream pearl beads (JBXM51) over the slightly lighter colour, because I think it makes the bracelet look warmer, and matches the purple colour nicely. So, thread the beads on both of the remaining wires until you have reached the desired length.

Lastly, once you are happy with the length of the bracelet, you can crimp the other wires on the opposite end, and add crimp covers to finish the design. 

Add a lobster clasp and extender chain, and the bracelet is done! So simple, yet so elegant. The design is festive, yet still appropriate as an accent piece for any outfit.

Now, for the green bracelet, the steps are exactly the same, except I chose to use a lighter coloured pearl (JBZ65) to accent the green on either side of the middle strand. I felt that it made the green pop against the whiter tone, and thought it added a bit of differentiation to the other bracelet as well.

I won't explain the steps again, but a picture tells a thousand words, and I have added 6 so that should be plenty clear for you to follow! :)

This picture reminds me of a Yin and Yang symbol,  except in jewellery-style!

Christmas is one of my favourite times of the year, and I love being able to share my festive jewellery designs on the Ruby Rock It blog :) I hope this post has inspired you to Just Bead It, and make some lovely jewellery pieces to give to friends and family this year. Thanks for reading :)

If you would like to get more information on some basic jewellery-making techniques such as how to use crimp 

beads and covers, and attaching lobster clasps etc, you can refer to my more thorough jewellery tutorial on the Just Bead It blog.

I hope you enjoyed this post - if you would like to view more of my designs, I also have an Etsy store called DominiquesWares which features more beaded jewellery. These particular bracelets will soon be uploaded to my store, so stay tuned for that :)

If interested, you can follow me on Twitter @DominiquesWares

or Instagram: dominiques_wares

You can also follow my Dominique'sWares blog

Thanks so much for reading - happy beading!