Hi there, Sandy here.
Welcome to another Friday Findings video at KeepsakeCrafts.net.
Today I'm answering some of the questions I get on my YouTube channel.
Today's questions are all about supplies and finishing your bead stringing.
So the first question I have is from many, many of you.
On many of the videos you have asked me about the supplies.
Where can I find this?
Where can I find that?
And I wanted to let you know in case you don't know already that every single one of my project
videos and Friday Findings videos has an accompanying blog post and that blog post will always have
usually a little bit more information, things I figured out after making the project or
after putting together the video and I will always have a supply list with links to products.
So all you need to do when you watch one of my videos is you can click on the little 'i'
in the upper right and that will bring you to a video card that will link to my blog
post or if you just go to the description box, open that up, click 'show more' and there
will always be a link to the blog post there and there you will find, like I said, more
information and supply lists and product links.
Now next I have questions from several folks on my bead stringing 101, beading 101, bead
stringing basics video.
Lauren Alleyne, I think.
I hope I'm pronouncing your name right said "I wish it showed her finishing the necklace.
I have a hard time getting rid of the extra space between beads at the finishing part
because I'm trying to hide the crimp" and 1994abbygirl said something similar.
"Do you have a video on attaching jump rings?
I don't have a problem with the first one, but the end one drives me crazy.
How do you get the beads and jump rings pulled down without a gap in the beads and crimp
bead?
Is there an easy way to do it?
Thanks for any help" and also Glenda Rednock said "on the two strands you showed there
was a link that had a space at the end and you put a tube with jump ring and squeezed
the tube, but you didn't show how the beads got to the end of the wire.
So can you tell me how you got everything nice and tight to the ends of the necklace".
Really you are all asking the same question, which is how do you finish up a piece of bead
stringing?
So here I have just some random, I just went into my blue box and pulled out a bunch of
beads and threw them on a piece of stringing wire.
Here I have a crimp and it's covered with a crimp cover and a jump ring and so here's
the end.
So we'll pretend this is the end of our bracelet or necklace or piece of stringing that we
want to make.
Now one of the things all those questions asked was "how do you get it nice and tight"
and one thing that you want to remember is that you don't really want it tight.
It is okay for a little bit of the wire to be exposed.
I mean, obviously you don't want, you know, 1/2" of wire or something showing, but it's
okay for a little bit, especially if the piece is a bracelet that's going to be in a very
tight curve.
Let me show you what I mean here.
So let's pretend this is curving around to this side and I'm going to pull these up tight.
Now when I straighten this out, this is quite rigid.
I don't know if you can see that.
So if I were to tighten this even further and then try to wear it as a bracelet, you
can see it almost doesn't even want to curve.
It's just very stiff.
It doesn't hang gracefully.
So having it super tight is actually over rated.
You don't have to have it tight.
You can have a little bit, even this much, 1/16" of a wire showing.
You want it to be able to, see the difference here where it's moving and it's graceful?
You need to give your beads a little bit of room to move.
That's the first thing.
Forget about having it super tight.
Of course we want it neat and we don't want a lot of exposed wire.
So just like with any crimp wire design, we're going to slide on a crimp and then here I
have a soldered closed jump ring.
You can use split jump rings, but it's best to use one that's soldered because if it's
split, inevitably the split is going to find the wire and then the wire goes back through
that jump ring.
This is where you have some decisions to make.
How tight do I pull this?
Now if we pull it as tight as we can get it, again like I said, it's very stiff.
It doesn't drape nicely.
You don't want to make it that tight so I'm going to actually loosen this up.
First of all, if you're making a bracelet, it's a good idea to just curve the beads and
that will actually build in some of the extra wire that you will need to get a nice graceful
curve and then I'm going to take my crimping pliers, grab the crimp in there and then you
can actually slide it a little.
I like to often slide it just a little closer to the jump ring so I have less of that wire
exposed.
Give it a good squeeze and then always, always, always give it a tug.
Now you can grab that crimp in the other end of your pliers, which is just an oval shape
and then you will fold it and that just makes it smaller and more discrete.
And then there's your piece all crimped and nice and neat and you can cover that with
a crimp cover and trim your wire.
Now at this point I want to address another question and this is from MsVrischika (?)
I believe.
Sorry about these pronunciations.
On my serpentine leafy green necklace.
She says "you make everything look so simple".
Thank you.
That's because I've done a lot of it.
Anybody who has done something with lots of practice does eventually make it look simple,
whether it's throwing a 40 yard pass or doing a plié or crimping a bead for a piece of
jewelry.
So she goes on to say "just wondering.
Is there a reason I see some other crafters threading through the crimp bead and then
back through the top beads?
They usually do that before clamping on the crimp bead.
I was just wondering if there was a reason why.".
What she means is, so I've gone through the crimp the second time and then going back
through some of these other beads like this.
Well there's one good reason you might do this and that's if you don't have a crimp
cover to cover the crimp.
That will sort of bury the wire in these beads and so I can throw it in there, pull this
up tight and notice I ended in kind of a largish bead and I'm going to pull it up snug to that
and trim it and now that wire is never going to poke anybody because it's inside that large
bead.
Some people are of the mistaken impression that doing that, that by doing that they are
making their project more secure, but that's not true.
Once you've done your crimping, I always, almost always tell you to give it a tug and
check and see, that came out.
I should have done that before.
Look at that.
I should have done that before I trimmed it.
I'm glad that I checked it now and this isn't a real piece of jewelry or I'd be crying.
Give it a good tug before you finish off your piece of jewelry and if it holds tight, you
can trim that wire like I did down here right at the crimp and then cover it with a crimp
cover.
No amount of wire that's buried in the other beads is going to save your piece of jewelry
from falling apart if your crimp isn't secure.
So always make sure that you give it that yank and that tug before you do any trimming
of the wire.
You saw my example right there.
It wasn't secure and it came apart and it wouldn't have mattered if the wire was back
through these three or all the way to the other end of the bracelet.
It would have eventually come undone.
The reason people send it through is either to keep the wire from scratching somebody,
which is perfectly valid and fine or they think it's going to make their beading more
secure, which it's not.
Always double check to make sure that your crimps are super secure.
Thanks so much for asking questions on my videos.
We have a really nice community going on here with folks, answering questions besides me
and folks with answers that I wouldn't have thought of.
It's really wonderful.
So feel free to ask questions, contribute answers to other people's and we'll all learn
and grow from everybody else who contributes.
So like I mentioned before, if you're interested in the supplies I use, click on the little
'i' in the upper right or the link in the description box to go to my blog post.
Be sure to subscribe if you haven't already and take a peek at my Patreon page for how
you can get great rewards and help support my video tutorials.
Happy creating.
Bye bye.