Hello and welcome to another jewelry making video brought to you by KeepsakeCrafts.net.
Today I'm going to teach you how to make caged beads.
Wrapping them with wire is a cool effect.
Then you can string them any way you like.
Today we're going to make them into a bracelet.
To make this project, you will need first, of course, some beads, whatever beads you
like to make up the length of your bracelet.
Today I'm using 10x15mm oval ceramic beads and in between those I'll have these 6mm bicone
beads.
You'll need a clasp.
You can use a lobster clasp if you like, but I have a toggle clasp today.
You'll need some bead stringing wire and crimps to string your bracelet together and for the
wire wrapping you'll need some 20 gauge wire.
You can use anything you have.
Sterling silver is beautiful.
You can oxidize it.
This is bright copper.
A caged bead is a rather fun element to make.
It's just a piece of wire that's wrapped around a bead in a spiral.
It gives it some interesting texture.
Now depending on the size of beads you have will depend on the length of wire to start
with so there is a little bit of trial and error here.
For these beads a 4" piece is just right so just use your wire cutters and cut yourself
a 4" piece of your wire and then use round nose pliers to make a loop on one end and
then grab that loop and continue spiraling that wire around.
Now if you have soft wire you should be able to at this point start spiraling it with your
fingers and just make a loose spiral and keep spiraling until you've used up half of your
wire and then repeat on the other side.
Your second spiral should go in the opposite direction so that when they meet, you have
a fancy 'S' shape.
The next step is to grab a hold of that center loop and just give a gentle pull so that you
pull that spiral out into a cone shape and do the same for the other spiral, pulling
them both to the same side and then fold that whole thing in half and
now you see how easy it is to make the cage for your bead.
A this point you can pop that open sliding your bead.
Now these are oval and flat.
Round beads really are the best ones to start with if you've never worked with wire before,
I recommend that, but you can just take a little time.
Like I said soft wire is great because it's softest and you can manipulate it with your
fingers and you want those loops that you started with to line up with the holes in
your bead and so just repeat until all of your beads are caged.
So once you've finished caging all your little beads, it's time to put it all together into
a bracelet.
Cut yourself about a 10" piece of bead stringing wire, slide on a crimp, slide on the round
part of your toggle clasp and then slide that end of the wire back through the crimp.
Make sure the wires are parallel and not crossed inside the crimp and then just flatten that
crimp near your clasp with a pair of chain nose pliers.
Give it a tug, make sure it's secure and then you can cut off that extra bit of wire and
now simply string your beads to the length you want and make sure that when you go through
these that you go through the loop of your wire and then the hole of the bead and then
back out through the other loop of the wire.
It might take a bit of manipulating to accomplish that.
When you get done, string a few small beads on the end so that you can bend your toggle
clasp and then finish your toggle with a crimp as well and you're done.
So here's another look at the bracelet we made today.
Keep in mind that you can use this technique for any kind of jewelry.
You can use it for earrings, for necklaces.
It's a great way to dress up a plain bead.
Also you can use any number of combinations of wire colors and bead colors.
If you have sterling silver wire you could oxidize it.
If you have bare copper wire you can patina it, all kinds of choices.
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