Jewellery Making

Jewellery making is something I have wanted to try for a while but I haven't had a clue where to start.

It was my lucky day when, on the way back from the craft and gift show, I stumbled upon a bead shop - right here in Brentwood! (apparently it's been there for several years but I don't often go to that part of the town).

When I walked in there were lots of lovely beads tempting me, so I signed up to a beginners workshop for the following Saturday.

In the workshop, there were two different types of necklace available to make and we had a pick of a large variety of beads. It turned out that the construction of the necklace itself is actually very straight forward, it's the designing of it that takes the most time.

The first necklace we made was this one:

 It was made using a length of tiger tail, folded in half. The majority of the beads are threaded onto one of the strands, but the other strand is used to thread one bead onto, with the design being held in place by a joiner bead threaded onto both strings. It's not as complicated as it looks and can be adapted in many different ways. However, it took us ages to decide on which beads to use - there were just too many on offer.

The next necklace was this one which is designed to be much longer:

Once you got the hang of how this one is constructed, it was very simple to build. Again, this design can be adapted and can be made smaller.

The Brentwood Bead Shop holds regular workshops from beginners to the more advanced. More information can be found on their website: www.brentwood-bead-shop.co.uk