Safety Pin Watch Tutorial!

Alright guys, this is my first shot at a tutorial. I absolutely love to make these and they are relatively simple. So strap in and let's go!

Look at how beautiful and unique! Mind you, they can be done in whatever color your creative little heart deems fit.

For this tutorial, I'll be using Black and White. 

Ok, so stuff you'll need:

Beads- (of course) I use the larger seed beads. 

Safety pins- about an inch in size and a lot of them

Crimp beads- 4 total

Clippers of some sort

Stretch cord - .8 mm is a good thickness

Watch face- make sure it has two holes on each side. (The photo below will explain)

Jewelry pliers

A clamp to hold the cord- optional.

See how the watch has two holes on one side? This is the kind you want to use.

Step one- place beads on safety pin

Step Two- Pinch the opening closed so the pin wont come apart and STAB YOU!

Step Three- Make a bunch of them. I use about 53 for a 7 inch wrist band.

Step Four- Prepare the watch! Take your stretchy cord and cut two strips the size of your wrist (give yourself some slack to work with)

Step Five- Slide one of those strips into the first hole like the photo above

Step Six- Take a crimp bead and put it on the end of the string. 

FLATTEN IT NICE AND TIGHT

Like so. 

Now when you pull it through, the string wont come out. Amazing, isn't it?

Repeat on other side. (Be sure to only crimp one side of the watch)

Step Seven- Thread the cord through a hole in the safety pin.

Step Eight- Thread it through the other hole and pull the safety pin snug against the watch face.

Do that over and over and over. Notice in the photo above that the ends which are being threaded through are changing. You want to make it this way so that it will lay flat and not have a funky curve to it.

Step Nine- Continue to thread until they are all on your band

Almost there!

Step Ten- When you have them all threaded up, clamp off one of the threads and grab the other. Pull that one through the hole on the other side of the watch.

Step Eleven- Put a crimp bead on. This step will be much like the first, except you want the crimp to be as close to the watch face as possible.

Step Twelve- Pull stretch cord firmly and flatten the crimp tube, making the band tight. 

Step Thirteen- Repeat with the other stretch thread.

Step Fourteen- Clip excess stretch cord and Ta Da! You have a fabulous stretchy safety pin watch. I guarantee, that once you get a knack for this watch, you wont want to stop making them!

Well, I hope I didn't blab your ear off and that this tutorial helped those who wanted to make this. 

Please, tell me your thoughts.

More Tutorials to come ;)

Pinned

So this is a first for me and I think it went rather well. I haven't ever tried my hand at making a brooch. Now this one is very colorful, but unique.

It reminds me of a star burst effect. I used some of my fabulous Blue Moon Beads and twine, along with a bit of 26 gauge wire to keep it all together. 

At first, I couldn't get the beads to stay together for the life of me, then I realized I just needed to tighten everything up, and Viola!

It could easily be made in different colors. 

Of course it had to have some purple in it. That's only my favorite color! So, the adventure of the brooch is complete.

Green with Envy!

Finally finished a few more projects. I'm going to show two (bracelet and earrings) in one post, though they weren't exactly made to go together.
Can I just say, I'm having a blast making Blue Moon Bead projects. In fact, I feel inspired to make a few more. ;)

First comes the earrings. Made with Melon Ball tin mix from Blue Moon Beads and a bit of chain. When I tried them on, they hang very comfortably and are incredibly light.

 My personal favorite is the green bead in the center. It's held in place by an eyepin, which made the chain easy to hang. It's got loads of dimension.

Second comes the bracelet. This one was a little more complex to make because every bead is on its own eyepin, but the effect is completely unique. This was also made with Melon Ball mix and a few copper eyepins.

I added just a few hanging beads to make it more like a charm bracelet, but not so many charms that it would distract or get in the way.

Finish it up with a toggle clasp and you've got yourself a bracelet that any girl could envy. :)

(Project 2&3)

Golden Feathers (Project 1)

After much debating and rearranging and even more debating, I've finally decided to settle on a necklace as my first project for my blog. I personally love necklaces; they have the power to turn a normal outfit from blah to unique!
Anyway, using my awesome Blue Moon Beads, I had so many choices with the cute tin bead mixes!  So, I decided to make use of beads from a few, such as Rum Raisin, Orange Fizz and Toffee Crunch (aren't those names fun!).

Honestly, I don't often use these colors (other than gold), but since I had the product at my fingertips, I decided to stretch those creative muscles of mine and go for it!

Made with a feather metal connector, this necklace hangs very nicely. And true to my nature, I just had to do the double layers!
The colors remind me of fall, which is perfect because it just snowed this week!
Very simple to make. I made the chain out of a bunch of jump rings that were different sizes and shapes to come up with a unique chain, or I guess normal chain works too, but what fun is that?

I would imagine this necklace would look great in all sorts of different colors and lengths and maybe even a third layer! The possibilities are endless!

It has arrived!

I finally got my package! There's so much in it that I didn't expect, and it's pretty overwhelming, but I can't stop smiling. I finally got travel sized tools! (Those are something I always wanted but could never justify buying). If this is what I have to look forward to every month, I'm going to be in HEAVEN! Already started creating, standby for project posts! YAY!