Cherished Gems: August 2011

hey guys, so here is my latest design, the christmas flower tree decoration.

below is a step by step tutorial of how to make it yourself.

you will need the following: one pair of round nosed pliers, one pair of needle nosed pliers, one pair of wire cutters. you will also need: a long length of tiger tail jewellery wire (approx 40cm) 16x 6mm beads, 8x 8mm beads and 8x 10mm beads. also one short length (approx 5cm) 0.8mm wire and one charm of your choice (i have used a snowflake)

thread onto your tiger tail, one 6mm bead, one 8mm bead and one 10mm like the above picture.

add one more 8mm bead, and cross the ends through it, left to right and right to left.

pull tight as above, ensuring that your beads are roughly in the centre of the wire.

add one 6mm bead to the left wire, and one 8mm to the right wire.

add another 8mm bead and cross the wire through it, again left to right and right to left, and pull tight.

continue like this until you have 7 10mm beads on the outside. cross the wires through an 8mm again, then thread another 6mm bead onto the left wire, and the final 10mm bead on the right wire.

now is the tricky part. take the left wire with the 6mm bead (as above) and thread it up through the first 8mm bead like so:

and pull tight.

then taking the final 10mm bead, cross the wires through it, again left to right and right to left.

and pull tight. now you have a flower, but you are not finished yet.

add a 6mm bead onto what is now the right wire.

and thread it through the nearest 10mm bead on the right side.

then pull tight. repeat with another bead, and all the way around until you have one gap left, at the top of the pendant.

thread on the final bead, and cross the wires through it, left to right and right to left, then pull tight.

thread a crimp bead onto the longest wire. cross the shortest wire through the crimp bead then thread it through the top bead making sure it doesn't poke out of the other end.

using your needle nosed pliers, squeeze the crimp bead flat, then trim off the long length of excess wire on the left.

your decoration should now look something like this:

now you need to attach the charm to the decoration. to do this you need to use the short length of wire. using your round nosed pliers curl the thick wire into a ring like so:

then using your wire cutters, cut the ring where it would start to overlap. using your needle nosed and round nosed pliers, twist the ring apart a little, taking care not to pull the loop out of shape, then add the charm, and close the loop using the pliers.

now you can use the leftover length of tiger tail to attach the charm to your flower. thread the wire through the bottom bead of the flower making sure you have a roughly equal length of wire on both sides of the bead.