Black and White set

I made this black and white set earlier this week. The beads used are plastic (the round faceted ones) and glass (the rest). The metal filigree part of the earrings is from an old pair of badly designed (they kept catching/tangling) earrings of a similar color scheme that I had bought at Walmart. I used silver-tone head pins and french wires from Michael's Arts and Crafts store. I strung a tiny clear/white seed beed onto the end because the bead holes were big enough to go over the end of the head pin.

For those of you who are new to beading, a "head pin" is a little peice of strong wire that is pre-cut to a certain length (about 2 inches) and has a something (usually a little flat peice of metal) at the end to stop the beads from falling off. They are a must-have for jewelry making, particularly for earrings and drop-necklaces.

Also, newbies, don't think you have to have the most expensive equipment/materials. In fact, I would advise against it for beginners because if you mess up and have to discard you are wasting more money. Get "quality" materials but don't go overboard just yet. I buy a fair amount of stuff from Walmart and I do use plastic materials even though they seem to be shunned now in the beading world. True, plastics can scratch and look cheaper than glass or crystal, but they cost less and sometimes work nearly as well asthetically. I have been using the cheap plastic faceted beads for my "crystals" in the jewelry I make. To me, it seems hard to tell the difference unless you are really looking. If you want to make a peice where they "crystal" beads are the main focus, you may want to step up to glass or real crystal. They can be pricey, especially if you opt for the high-quality Swarovski (pronounced "swuh-RAHV-skee") brand crystals. Also, if you are going to do much jewelry making that involves wire, PLEASE invest in a decent wire-cutter and needle-point pliers. I use a small anvil-headed wire-nipper that I got from Michael's.

Feel free to contact me with any questions about this post.