Tips About of Making Sterling Silver Bracelets

Making your own sterling silver bracelet is a challenging but worthwhile experience. It is also a fairly cheap way to upgrade your jewelry collection. Best of all, the pieces that you'll be working with are easily interchangeable, so you can always keep trying out new designs by recycling old bracelets.

1 Buy all your supplies from a local bead or hobby store. Choose several different bead designs so you can alternate them on the wire. You can read up on some common bracelet bead patterns from a jewelry-crafting guide book. Choose a 20- or 24-gauge jewelry wire that is strong yet flexible, such as tigertail.
2 Measure and cut out a length of your jewelry wire equivalent to the length of the bracelet you wish to make. Make sure you add about 1 inch of wire for the bracelet ends.
3 Attach one end of the clasp to the wire by threading the wire through the connector on one half of the clasp, folding over 1/4 inch of the wire. Thread a crimp bead onto the wire, capturing the tail in the crimp bead. Pinch and flatten the crimp bead with your pliers. When the crimp is flattened, pull on the wire to make sure it holds. Move the crimp bead into the first groove of the pliers to create a rounded, finished look.
4 String your beads through the jewelry wire in the pattern that you wish. Make sure to leave about 1 inch of the wire free at the end, so you can attach the other end of the clasp to it.
5 Thread a crimp bead through the other end of the wire and flatten it with the pliers as you did with the first crimp bead.
6 Snip off any leftover jewelry wire and clasp the bracelet together.