If you would like to learn how to make beaded jewelry in the comfort of your own home, learning at your own pace, without the expense of taking classes at a bead store, then I have some very good news for you.

I have created an online video course that teaches you the basics of bead jewelry making including bead stringing and bead weaving.

I named the course “Bead Jewelry Making for the Clueless Jewelry Artist WannaBe” because I remember that “clueless” was exactly how I felt when I became interested in beading many years ago.

As an instructor I have learned that it is so important to have a positive experience when you first start jewelry making.

Otherwise you can easily become frustrated and give up too soon.

Many beginners start with books and magazines and attempt to learn from written patterns which in my opinion is the wrong way to go because you need to already have a good foundation of understanding before you start working with written patterns.

For true beginners, the best way to start is with face-to-face classes or videos so that you can see every little detail that the instructor is showing.

The only problem with face-to-face jewelry making classes is that they are fairly expensive since you are paying for the instructor’s time.

That’s why I recommend trying free online videos first, and then if you find you really like bead craft, you can invest in more advanced classes knowing that you’re not throwing your money away, which is so important in these tough economic times.

With my online video course for beginners you can move from clueless to mastering the basics in a very short time, and did I mention that it’s free?

There’s no risk at all so please click on the link below and learn more about the course as well as view some video clips from the course.

How to Make Beaded Jewelry Online Video Course

After you finish the course please let me know if it helped you. I’d love to hear your story!

Thanks!

Well, it is the time of year for giving, so I was wondering what I could give as a present to everyone and about two seconds later, the snowflake pendant video popped into my head!

I love this design and it’s perfect for the winter season, and a great design to create as a gift for someone.

You can use many different types of swarovski crystal beads to create very different looking snowflakes.

My personal favorite is using AB crystals so that you get more of a sparkling effect.

I am only going to keep the video up in the free beading patterns section until December 31 this year, so be sure to hurry over and master the pattern while you have time.

Once you’ve tried it I would be grateful if you could let me know how you liked it.

The link to the video is at the bottom of the page when you click here:

Free Beading Patterns

Enjoy!

Bead kits are now being offered at Jewelry Making Professor.

We have always offered an All-in-one beading starter kit for beginner beaders, but we are now going to start offering beading kits for individual lessons.

I decided to do that after getting so many questions from customers about where to buy the supplies for the video lessons available on our site.

For jewelry makers who have been accumulating beads and parts for years, there’s usually enough supply laying around, but for beginner beaders it can be a real hassle to constantly head off to the bead store, or if you don’t have a bead store nearby than to surf the internet for the required beads.

The nice thing about the kit is that it’s all done for you.

In the near future I plan to start offering kits from other bead kit makers as well, but for now I will start with Jewelry Making Professor’s own kits.

One of the uniques aspects of our kits is that the instructions that come along with the kit will not be written instructions, but an instructional video on DVD.

This will be a real nice feature for those jewelry makers that have trouble deciphering written patterns, and also if you are buying a kit to give to your favorite beading buddy, you can be sure they will be able to follow the instructions because jewelry making videos are such an effective tool for instruction.

To check out the kits we offer, please click on the following link:

Bead Kits

I’m not much for buying things that I think I can make. 

That means that I make pretty much everything from scratch.  I think that’s why working with wire has been so intriguing to me …. and addictive!  I don’t buy jump rings or eye pins and I even make my own shepard’s hook clasps. 

So of course, it made sense that one day I decided that a necklace I was making needed it’s own special hand made toggle and it needed to start its life from a spool of wire.

To start, I determined that I wanted this toggle to end up at the front of the necklace, so it needed to be a nice size. 

I spool knit 28 gauge wire with random occasions of stone to create the “chain” for the necklace.  Then I attached the handmade toggle to the ends of the knitting. 

The result has been a necklace that has turned into one of my favorites.

I used iolites in my original necklace, but I used labradorites throughout the toggle tutorial.  If you’ve never used labradorites, you will soon fall in love with them. 

They are greyish in hue and have a opalescent quality that gives off iridescent glimmers of light.  Those refractions inside the labradorites pick up the colors that the stone is next to, which means it will match anything you wear with it. 

If you’d like to learn more about how to make this toggle, please click on this link:

Wire Wrapped Toggle Clasp

I have been on a roll with serpentine patterns so I decided to create one more using this basic bead weaving technique.

This time I used it to create a Serpentine Ring.

The technique is basically the same as the necklace and the bracelet I already introduced. You put seed beads or round beads on one string and larger beads on the other.

I did something a little unique with the ring design.

I had always wanted a turquoise ring so I bought some 4mm natural stone beads at a bead show a while back, but I hadn’t done anything with them yet. If you are addicted to beading, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.

So I tried making the ring with these natural turquoise stones.

If you look very closely at the ring design, I used the turquoise beads to create a picot and then a serpentine weave both above and below the picot to create symmetry.

Of course, you don’t have to use natural stones when you create this ring. You can use any kind of round 4mm beads.

I also used 1.8mm sterling silver round beads around the turquoise beads because I thought it gave a nice contrast, but you can use size 11 seed beads in place of these if you like.

I also wanted to make the turquoise stand out so instead of using another round bead shape around the edges I used very light colored czech fire beads and the shape and color of those worked perfectly to make the focus of the ring design the turquoise beads and silver round beads.

This design is a little more advanced than the necklace and bracelet but is really fun to create.

The only thing you have to be careful about is if you use natural stones it can be difficult to get a precise ring size because the size of the beads can vary significantly.

So you have to experiment a bit to get the size you want.

Here is a preview of the video class:

If you are interested in learning more about this beading class on video, please click on this link:

Serpentine Ring Beading Class