How To Make Your Own Individual Jewellery

Did you ever consider making your own personalised jewellery. Perhaps you played with beads when you were a child but have never touched them since. Necklaces particularly are very easy to create and with some
ingenuity can look either funky or elegant and appropriate in both cases to the rest of the outfit you are wearing.

The first thing you need to decide is what to make the necklace from. Semiprecious stones are a good choice such as jade, amber or other semiprecious jewels already polished and with holes in them ready to string. Or you can start from scratch. If you live near the sea, or go on holiday there, you can go beachcombing and look for stones, it is amazing what you can find, although you are unlikely to find anything truly valuable. However, don’t think about value, it’s about looks that complement your outfit.

Next, polish your stones. This will take some time. You start with an abrasive  to get the basic shape and take the roughness off and gradually polish with softer abrasives and cloths until you finally get the finish you want. Do not hurry this process, the longer you spend at this, the better the final jewel is likely to be.

Now you will want to make holes in your beads so that you may string them together.  There are many tools out there you may use – the most obvious one being the miniature drills used by model makers. Line your beads up before drilling them so that you know exactly where to drill and again take care. Having invested all the time and effort into polishing your stones, it would be foolish to break or scratch them at this stage.

Stringing your beads is the next step. Jewellers thread is probably the best for this, although other threads could also be employed. Be careful, though, sewing cotton and the like will be too soft and will break and fishing line is to hard and may cut its way through your beads – and your neck if you are not careful. Don’t finally tie the thread until you are satisfied with the arrangement. You can place them a number of times before finishing the knot, but once that knot is finished it will be difficult to change without starting over with a new piece of thread.

By taking your time, and being creative it is possible to make some truly unusual pieces of jewellery. I know somebody who pierced orange pips to make a necklace – it looks great. Try carving and polishing small pieces of coal, it looks just like jet, with little or no cost. It may not last long, but this sort of jewellery is not meant to be an heirloom.