Kit review - Jessie necklace from Spellbound Bead Co

We tried out this kit to make a flowery bead-stitched necklace perfect for an Indian summer.

The Jessie necklace kit has a difficulty rating of 6 out of 10 so it's a great project for a beginner to intermediate beader. The pack contains all the beads required including some bright and colourful small dagger beads and some interesting 'Candy' beads from Preciosa which are domed on one side and flatter on the other.

Also included are clearly stepped instructions and diagrams to keep your beading on track as well as a needle and beading thread. Just add a bead mat, some clear nail polish/glue and a pair of sharp scissors and you are good to go.

The flowers in the necklace are constructed separately to the beaded strands so it's a nice easy progression into the more complicated parts of the project. I love the colours in this kit but I am already thinking that I'd like to try this design again using traditional daisy colours. Spellbound stock the white dagger beads I'd need as well as the yellow candy beads. I probably still have enough of the green seed beads left from this project!

Once the flowers are complete, you link them up in a double chain of green seed beads. I have to admit that I got myself into quite a tangle to start with (the petals are quite spiky and seem to catch the thread very easily). I found the best approach was to keep the bracelet flat on the mat and to keep checking the path of my thread to ensure it didn't get caught. This becomes even more important when you do the second row of linking chain!

Here's the finished necklace with an easy bead tag clasp. It's really delicate and pretty. I just hope we get some late season sun so I can get to wear it and show it off!

The Jessie necklace kit is £11.50 and available from the Spellbound website.

Kit Review - Country Garden Earrings from Spellbound Bead Co

Create 25 pairs of floral earrings in time for summer!

Country Garden Earring Creative Pack - Autumnal colour way

When Christine at Spellbound Bead Co asked me to review this creative pack, I will be perfectly honest and tell you that I didn't think I would need the instruction booklet that comes with all the supplies. I've made lots of flowery earrings before, and thought I'd find the designs included far too easy. Boy, was I wrong! I learned lots of new techniques, particularly in creating stems and stamens from wire, and the designs I made from the instructions provided were so much better than those I might have come up with on my own.

Country Garden Earring Creative Pack - Azure colourway

Looking at what comes with the kit — alongside the detailed instruction booklet comes a selection of lucite shapes including leaves and flowers of different types, three sizes of seed beads in a variety of colours, lots of tiny glass trumpet flowers and leaves along with glass pearls, facets, headpins, silver plated wire and enough earring findings to make 25 pairs of earrings. All you need to add are the tools. Just a pair of round nosed pliers, wire cutters and chain nosed pliers should suffice. Oh, and a tape measure if you want to follow the instructions precisely and cut all your headpins and wire lengths exactly to size.

My first piece of advice when starting with this kit echoes that given on the first page of the booklet included. Make sure to read the 'Before You Begin' section that covers all the techniques and materials needed. It will help a lot if you understand all the different lucite shapes too!

If you are new to jewellery making or to the techniques used, then it is definitely a good idea to start with the simpler designs introduced first in the booklet. I should say here that the designs are very sensibly ordered so that you may master simpler skills first before adding in more tricky techniques using wire. I began with the Bluebells earrings and worked my way through the next eight designs before I had a go at earrings further on in the booklet and even having a go at my own designs. Each design has a clear list of the ingredients required and a lovely photograph of the finished earrings so you can check your work easily.

One of the great things about this kit is that none of the earrings take very long to make. You could whip up a pair to match your summer dress at a moment's notice, or quickly create a last minute gift for a friend. Available in Candy (pink, white and blue), Garden (purple, pink and lilac), Azure (blue, green and purple) and Autumnal (black, red and gold), you will find it tricky to choose which colour way to buy. I tested the Azure kit but I now have my eye on the Autumnal pack with its inclusion of reds and bolder colours.

Here are some of my finished earrings displayed on my new flower pot earring stands. Find out how to make the pots here.

The Country Garden Earrings Creative Pack is available from Spellbound Bead Co and is priced at £29.95 which works out at around £1.20 per pair of earrings! 

We have a pack to give away to one lucky winner!
To enter, just leave a comment on this post with your preferred colour way and we will pick a winner at random after midday on Monday 6th June. Which colour will you choose?

Kit Review - Haryana Bracelet

We tested this bracelet kit from Spellbound Bead Co that uses nothing more than simple square stitch

Buy yours here

The Haryana Bracelet kit is available in three colourways. Eastern Jewel is based on a design that appeared in Beads & Beyond a few years ago and is a bright and colourful choice. The less bold amongst you might prefer the Black/Gunmetal/Silver option or Autumn which is the kit I am testing here. The kits are all priced at £12.95.

The kit comes with a detailed booklet containing all the instructions, diagrams and a list of materials and tools. A needle and coordinating thread is also included. You'll just need scissors, a bead mat and a touch of glue or clear nail polish to seal any knots.

Before I start a kit from Spellbound, I always read through the instructions and then tip out a small amount of each bead type onto my mat. Don't tip out all the beads as you may forget which one is which. The bags are clearly labelled!

When following a bead pattern like this one, I find it helpful to number the rows. Bear in mind that the instructions are the same whichever colourway you choose. This means that yellow on the pattern grid may not actually correlate to yellow in your pack. I found it helpful here to letter each of the beads. A'G' indicates that the yellow bead is actually green in my design.

You'll complete all the blocks of beadwork first in this design. The number of blocks you need will depend on the size of bracelet you want. The instructions tell you how many blocks to stitch for what length of bracelet, allowing for the beading between the blocks and the clasp. I needed seven blocks in total.

Once you've completed the blocks, you link them together with strands of beads using a long length of beading thread. It pays to condition your thread for this bit as it can be quite a tangle if you aren't careful. I chose to finish the threads on the blocks and trim them before I started this bit as they kept getting in the way. 

All that's left after that is to add a sliding clasp which is simply stitched to the beadwork blocks at each end.

This kit is rated a 6/10 on Spellbound's difficulty scale but I think most beginner beaders could master it. The Delica beads are very small so work in good light and use a magnifying lamp if necessary.