Today's Featured Gift Item: Swallow Necklace and Bracelet Set

Today's featured gift is a great necklace and bracelet set. The necklace is quite long, around 20 inches. It hangs quite nicely. It has a swallow charm and crystal square charms. The matching bracelet has square crystal charms. Today, rather than disscuss step by step how I made it, I'm going to give some more generic tips for jewelry making.

1. Have the right tools!
   I know this sound cliche, but having good tools saves you a lot of headache! The 2 tools you cannot live without (at least I can't!) are a wire cutters and a needle-nosed pliers. I actually have two neddle-nosed, one big and one small. I also have a jewelry bending pliers (it has round ends rather than flat ones). It also helps if you make necklaces to have a beading board. These have grooves in them so you can lay out your beads in order before strining them.
   


2. Take your time.
   The more I try to hurry when making something, the more jump rings go flying, things keep breaking and beads go scattering all over the floor. I find by taking my time I do a much better job of making quality pieces.
   


3. Look over your work when you're finished.
   I often have this problem. I think I'm done with a piece and then just lay it aside. Then later when I or someone else is wearing it, something comes off. This is especially easy to do when working with jump rings. Test out your jewelry. Spin the charms/beads around a few times to make sure they're attached well. Also, I use split rings as often as I can. These are like tiny key rings that you have to work harder to get on your jewelry, but that also makes them much harder to come off than plain jump rings.

I hope these tips are helpful. Ask questions in comments if you would like more information.
Happy Crafting!