With the tools presented below you should have no trouble getting started and creating beautiful beaded jewelry! Pliers - You will need both round nose and flat nose pliers. Pliers are used to bend wire and pins for your projects; round nose pliers bend wire into loops while flat nose pliers make angular bends. Flat nose pliers are also useful for holding elements of your project while you work.
Cheap pliers from the hardware store often have rough edges that can damage your projects. Invest in good quality pliers that will last forever and are easy to work with. My hand tools are like natural—yet more precise and steely—extensions of my hand, and my bead table is covered with them. Let me count here. Of all the beading tools on my worktable, I think the chain-nose pliers are my favorite.
Not only do I use them for bending wire but also for opening loops and rescuing my needle from too-filled-with-thread beads. Chain-nose pliers have smooth flat jaws that taper to a point. Even though these pliers really only do one thing—bend loops—they are invaluable for getting a professional look. Round-nose pliers have smooth cylindrical jaws that taper to a point. My favorite feature?
Before I really knew about stringing beads on wire I thought a person could get by with just squeezing a crimp tube closed.
But now I know the fine art of crimping and how much better a piece looks when done the proper way! Crimping pliers have jaws with two notches: one collapses the crimp tube, the other shapes it. The pointy jaws of this cutter are flat on one side, V-shaped on the other. Again, when aiming for a professional look, a flush wire cut is so much nicer to look at and to wear than a mangled angled one. You can buy a cutters strictly designed for cutting steel and other blade-denting metals or do like me and employ one of your trashed flush cutters.
This might be a weird one, but I find myself using these more and more in my bead studio. So, I have covered the obvious things like the beads themselves. Then we have materials for stringing them, like thread and wire. Also, findings — the clasps and metal bits you need for constructing jewellery. And, finally, storage solutions to help you as your beading supplies grow in number. Now, if you have even the slightest knowledge of beading, you probably know that there are a huge range of different types of beads, stringing materials, tools, etc.
So, to help you discover things more easily, I have split all these areas into sections. These are the little round beads and cylinder beads that we commonly use for bead-weaving.
Take a look at the left-hand photo, just above. They range in size from under 1mm to 3mm. They are basically round and they have just one hole through them. For a few years now, we have had a lot of new beads coming onto the market. This section looks at the beads that have more than one hole through them.
Some have two holes per bead, some three holes, some even four. Probably the most widely-known and commonly used bead of this type is the Superduo.
See the central photo, above. These beads are great for adding interest to your designs. So, if you would like to find out what is available, this is the place. I have described the beads, explained how to use them and given you some links to patterns you can try. Typically, these are slightly larger in size — starting at 2mm and working up to 8mm, in general although there are always exceptions!
The shapes vary from cubes, ovals, diamonds, squares, semi-circles, triangles… The list goes on and on! Like the multi-holed beads, the shaped seed beads have been designed to add interest to your projects. You will commonly use them for bead-weaving. And I have explained what each bead is, how to use it and also linked to some projects for you to try. Shop pliers sets here. I hope you found this guide helpful. The tools on this list are very practical but are not absolutely critical to bead weaving.
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