Jewelry Making and Beading Skills to Build

Skill Builders - How to Wrap a Briolette

Even before moving beadshop to a fully online venue, Janice Parsons was a pioneer when it came to creating web-based tutorials, including handouts and videos. As a result, beadshop now has a plentiful selection of free how-to content for jewelry designers and beaders. This free information has been collected and organized in an area of the beashop site called Skill Builders. Here you can find free class handouts, technique instructions, finishing methods, and much more.

If you are ready to expand on some of your current jewelry making skills or if you are totally new to the hobby, spending time building your skills via the beadshop Skill Builders section is a good way to focus on specific methods to help you create beautiful jewelry. I recommend beginning by browsing through this resource area, and then cull out the most important methods for you to learn first. Then, you can return to finish mastering additional skills.

Here are a few examples of what you’ll discover in Skill Builders:

• How to Wire Wrap a Briolette: Learn to add briolette dangles to the ends of chain or turn them into drop earrings. A video is linked over from the beadshop YouTube channel along with information on tools required and suggested wire to use. 
• How to Open and Close a Jump Ring: Seems like a simple enough task to do but if you aren’t careful about opening and closing up ring rings correctly, then you can damage the jump ring. It can also cause the jump ring to slip off a piece of jewelry or snag clothing. This tutorial provide close up photographs along with written instructions. 
  
• How to Macrame: Simple knotting techniques are often used by many of the free beadshop projects. Knowing the basics first can help you successfully make a large variety of stylish jewelry pieces.