How To Cut Flatware For Crafts And Jewelry

Hi friends! I just uploaded a new video to my YouTube channel. It's a short one, but while I was working I thought I'd use the opportunity to record for you and share what I was doing.

I have a few jewelry projects in my first book, Boho Chic Jewelry, that use vintage cast off pieces of silverware—forks, spoons and butter knives—and turn them into unique pieces of jewelry. Each project in the book has detailed instructions with great photos to teach you how to do it all, but still, there's nothing like being there and seeing firsthand how something is done! 

Enter my messy workbench and a handful of vintage silver plated butter knives—a recent thrift store find at only 10 cents each!

To turn these vintage finds into usable components, all you need are a few simple tools, the know-how, and a little elbow grease. Really, anyone can do it!

Here's the prize that you end up with in the end - a beautiful, vintage component that you can use for jewelry or in your craft creations. How sweet is that? 

And of course at the end of the video, I always offer suggestions for how you can reuse every last bit. 

I use these components to create my necklaces (shown above), and like I said, you can find the complete step by step instructions for this particular project in my book, but check out the video for a behind the scenes sneak peek! 

You can watch the new video here, and while you're there, don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel to be the first to get updates when I post new videos! 

Here's an entire bowl full of these beauties. I love just sifting through them and admiring their beautiful patterns. 

Want one but don't want to make your own? I have just a few available here in my Etsy Shop, so be sure to check them out! 

Check out the video here!

Have a great week!

 Laura

Check out my new jewelry instruction books and DVDs

Article, images, and designs copyright ©Laura Beth Love for Dishfunctional Designs™ 2018

all rights reserved

How To Organize Your Beads For Jewelry Making

When you first start jewelry making and beading, one of the first things you will discover is that you need storage for your beads and jewelry components! I think it's really important to be organized from the get go—it's a real pain to try and organize in a particular way if in the beginning you just lump all of your beads together, so start out by thinking about how you would like your beads organized, and then follow through with that. 

In this blog post I am going to share with you how I organize some of my own beads and components for jewelry making. Everyone has their own ways of doing things. The following are the things that worked best for me, but by all means, do what works best for you!

I organize my beads in a few different ways. First off, I organize by color. This is especially helpful for jewelry making, because obviously you are going to be creating things that most often are color-coordinated, so it makes sense to have all different shades of, say, green - together so that you can see the differences in hues and shades and tones, all in one box. Doing it this way makes it easy to pick just the right color. 

I also organize my beads by material. I most often use beads that are stone and glass. I have a lot of stone beads, and I have a lot of glass beads. Sometimes I mix these different material beads in one project, but most often I create something that is strictly all gemstone/stone, or all glass. 

That being said, I have one set of boxes that are all stone beads, and another set of boxes that are all glass beads. Both sets of boxes are arranged by color. I have one specific box for each color or color family.

I use standard plastic bead boxes that I bought years ago at a craft store - I think it was either Michael's or ACMoore, and I think they came in packs of 2 or 3 or 4—I forget—but my point is that you do not need anything fancy or expensive to store your beads in. The containers I use each have about 17 separate pockets for beads, which stores plenty per box.

I keep most of my boxes stacked in an old bookcase, which works great since it allows me to keep them at eye level and easy to reach. 

Here you can see a few of the examples of my organization by color family. I have one box for pinks & reds, one for yellows & oranges, one for browns & earth tones, etc. 

I also have boxes for different types of metal beads and different finishes. There are sterling silver, silver plated, copper, vintage silver, etc. 

I keep special rows of boxes that contain the things that I use most often. This makes it easy to grab them without searching. Things like pearls, clasps, sterling silver components and Swarovski crystals—I box the crystals by size...one box for 6mm, one for 4mm, etc.  

Here's a peek into one of my blue stone boxes. I have a few blue boxes—one for turquoise shades, one for true blues, one for greenish-blues, etc.

Here's one of my yellows & oranges boxes, where I store things like amber, carnelian, and citrine. 

Here's one of my pearl boxes - I try to organize them by size and shape. I peel the sticker labels off of the bags that they arrive in from the supplier, and stick those labels into the box sections with the beads. This makes it easy to see the sizes at a glimpse, and makes it easy to reorder them if needed.

Here you can see that I saved the bead-strand tags and put them in with the beads. It can be easy to forget what stone is what! Keeping the prices with the beads is essential to determining how to price your finished jewelry. Just how much did you pay for those beads? How much for the strand? How many were on the strand? How much does that come to per bead?

Here is the same photo showing the reverse sides of the tags. Here it tells you info such as: how many beads were on the strand, the name of the stone, whether it was treated (dyed, hardened, etc), and a brief description of shape and or size.

I like to keep metal components in small plastic bags to deter tarnishing, which is oxidation of the metal from it's exposure to air. 

 Here is a box of my glass beads, greens with a few other colors. 

I love green.

I keep many other supplies in these photo boxes that you can buy at most craft stores (I think I bought mine at ACMoore.) These are great for storing wire, chain, jump rings, and headpins—things I buy a lot of.

And finally, no matter how organized I keep my supplies, my workspace usually looks like this! 

I hope you enjoyed this peek into my bead storage and organization and hopefully you were able to take away a good hint or two for organizing your own beads and jewelry making supplies! Happy jewelry making! 

Pin this post! 

Have a great week!

 Laura

My broken china jewelry is always available for purchase at https://www.etsy.com/shop/dishfunctionldesigns

Check out my new jewelry instruction books and DVDs

Article, images, and designs copyright ©Laura Beth Love for Dishfunctional Designs™ 2018

all rights reserved

Easy Beginner Tutorial: How To Make A Basic Elephant Necklace

I remember when I first got the idea to make jewelry. When it came to the technical aspect of tools and components, as a beginner, I had absolutely no idea where to start. 

I had been making stained glass and also making mosaics out of stained glass and vintage broken china, when I started setting aside certain china shards that I would come across that just seemed too special to be put into a mosaic. I knew they had to be the main feature in whatever way they were to be recreated, so I set them aside to hopefully one day turn them into jewelry. 

When the day came to turn my soldered china prototypes into actual wearable pieces of jewelry, I had to teach myself everything. Learning what the different components were and what they were used for, learning about different metals and chains and wire gauges was a bit confusing at first, but I just took my time and figured it out the best I could. Then came the tools. Some looked like they were from another planet! I quickly found out that there were a lot of tools that I really DIDN'T need, and that the most important thing I needed was my own creativity and lots of good lighting. 

But the whole point of this blog post is that we all have to start somewhere. When you first start out, even the most simple necklaces can seem confusing when you're not sure what goes where. 

In this beginner tutorial I will show you how to assemble a simple chain necklace with a chain, clasp, and charm. I chose an elephant charm for my project. You can use any type of charm you like. This basic assembly will become second nature to you quickly as you create more jewelry. 

Supplies needed:
Jewelry chain in desired length (I use 18")
Lobster-claw style clasp
(1) 4mm jump ring
(2) 5 to 5.5 mm jump rings
2 pair of basic jewelry pliers (sometimes called chain nose pliers)

First, assemble your supplies. It's always good to have extra jump rings in case you accidentally bend one out of shape. Work in a well-lit area. Reading glasses work great for helping to see small components! 

First we will add a jump ring to your charm (AKA your component, or your focal piece). Charms sometimes come with jump rings already attached. Yay!  Sometimes they don't. So we'll easily add our own. Important: Make sure your large jump ring that you are going to attach to your charm is big enough to fit onto your chain. If it isn't, get a larger jump ring, or get a smaller gauge chain. 

First we have to open the jump ring to thread our charm on it. We always use two pairs of pliers to open jump rings. Using two pairs of pliers is important because the jump ring needs to be twisted with both ends turning away from each other (see photo above). 

To open your jump ring, hold the jump ring with the seam side up, use one pair of pliers in each hand to grip the jump ring ends where they meet. Now use a small twisting motion to separate the ends of the jump ring so that one end goes up and one goes down (see above photo). The most important thing is that you do NOT pull the ends apart from each other left to right or you will land up with a misshapen jump ring that will never close properly. 

Once your jump ring is open, thread your charm onto your jump ring as shown in the photo above. 

Now close the jump ring the same way you opened it - using two pair of pliers, one in each hand. Just grip the ends of the jump ring and carefully twist them back together until they meet. If you hear a clicking sound when the ends come together, that's good! 

Now thread your charm onto your chain by putting the chain through the jump ring. 

To finish your necklace all you need to do is attach your clasp and jump rings to your chain ends as shown in the above photo. To do this, open your smaller (4mm) jump ring using the same technique above, and thread the loop that's on the bottom of your clasp onto the jump ring. Then thread the end of your chain onto the same jump ring and then close the jump ring as we did above. 

Now attach your last, larger jump ring to the opposite chain end. This jump ring will serve as the catch for your clasp. That's it! You've put together your first simple chain necklace. 

What did you think? Easy? Maybe next time we will add some coordinated beads...

Let me know what you'd like to see!

Have a great week!
love,

 Laura

My broken china jewelry is always available for purchase at https://www.etsy.com/shop/dishfunctionldesigns

Check out my new jewelry instruction books and DVDs!

Learn how to solder and make unique jewelry!

article copyright ©Laura Beth Love 2017 all rights reserved

DIY Tiered Jewelry Organizer Made From Vintage China Plates & Teacups

Today I'm going to show you how you can turn your thrift store and flea market teacups, plates, and saucers into a pretty tiered organizer. This organizer is great for holding jewelry or other small collections, makes a unique candy dish, and is certainly a conversation piece. All you need are a few supplies. It's easier than you might think! 

Assemble your supplies

First, let's gather our supplies. For this project you will need a variety of old plates, saucers, and teacups. You will need a tube of E6000 adhesive. This is available at hardware stores, department stores such as Target, and even in some grocery stores. Due to the materials we will be gluing, I do not recommend using any other adhesive. Hot glue will not work, nor will water-soluble school glue, so get yourself a tube of E6000. 

You will need a disposable popsicle stick or craft stick to help spread the glue, and you will need some old newspaper to cover and protect your tabletop while you work. 

A paper plate or a piece of waxed paper comes in handy when you need to set your glue-covered craft stick down, so you may want to keep one of those at your workstation too. And remember, when using any type of adhesive, always be sure to work in a well-ventilated area.

Choosing your china

For the organizer we are going to make today, you will need three plates and three teacups. From the bottom up, our organizer will look like this: plate, teacup, plate, teacup, plate, teacup.

To keep your tiered organizer from being top-heavy and toppling over, we need to build our organizer so that the largest and heaviest plates and cups are on the bottom, and the smaller and lighter ones are on the top. Think about this when you are choosing your china. 

Before we glue any of our pieces together, we will first pick them out and stack them up so we can see how our finished project will  look.

First, choose a heavy plate for the bottom so that your organizer has a sturdy base. Remember, we are going to be stacking china on top of this plate, so it has to be large and heavy so that your "china tower" does not topple over. Once you have chosen your base plate, set it aside and choose your first teacup that will be glued to the top of that plate. This teacup will be glued upside-down to the bottom plate. This is because the diameter of the cup's opening is (most likely) larger than the diameter of the bottom of the cup. 

Once you have chosen your first cup, set it aside next to your base plate and then choose your middle plate. This plate will be glued on top of the bottom of the teacup that you just chose. Make sure you choose a plate that has a smaller diameter than your base plate. Your middle plate should also be lighter than your base plate. Once you have chosen that plate, try it out to see how it looks stacked up and then set it aside. 

Note: if using elongated plates, you can either line them up or stagger them, as shown in the photos below:

Plates lined up with each other. 

Plates staggered.

Next, choose your second tea cup. This cup will be glued upside-down on top of the middle plate that you just chose. 

Once you have chosen your second teacup, choose your third plate. This plate will be situated on top of the bottom of the teacup that you just chose. Choose the smallest and lightest plate for this position. A saucer often works great for this position. 

Finally, you will choose your third and last teacup to complete your china tower. This teacup will be glued right-side-up on top of the small plate or saucer that you last chose. 

Now that you have all of your china picked out and you know what is going where, it's time to glue them together! Before you glue, make sure all pieces are clean and dry. We will glue them together from the bottom up.

 Open your adhesive and carefully apply a ring of glue around the rim of the first (bottom) teacup, and then place the teacup, glue-side down onto the top center of your bottom plate.

Now - it is up to you whether you want to continue gluing right away, or wait until those two pieces have dried. I recommend allowing them to dry overnight before adding the next piece. Either way, next you will glue the center plate to the bottom of the bottom cup, allow that to dry, and then add your second cup  - once again upside-down, and once that is dry add your small plate, and then your final top cup, which you will glue to the small plate right-side-up. 

Another option is to forgo the top teacup and use the small plate as your top tier. It's a matter of personal taste. Do what you think looks best. Below are two different ways of stacking elongated plates - lined up or staggered.

Staggered elongated plates

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! Please share this post with your friends and remember, I always love to see your creations so feel free to email them to me via my Etsy shop or  on my Facebook page (links in the right hand sidebar).

What do you think?


Have a great week!
love,

 Laura

My broken china jewelry is always available for purchase at https://www.etsy.com/shop/dishfunctionldesigns

Check out my new jewelry instruction books and DVDs!

Learn how to solder and make unique jewelry!

article copyright ©Laura Beth Love 2017 all rights reserved