Everybody, it’s Cara and I'm back with part two of the tutorials
that I'm putting together to show you guys how I make my silver charms and bracelets. I have had a couple videos that I've uploaded
and I had some few questions on how I put them together, so, I decided to go
ahead and do these tutorials and show you the way that I do it. I just want to
say again I'm not a professional. I have not taken any classes, this is just
the way that it works best for me and I'm hoping that it answers any questions
those few you had and maybe help somebody else out when they're starting.
In the first video I showed you guys how I pulled together on my
supplies, get my tools ready, make the choices of chain and all that good
stuff, which is what I did. I did choose to use the chain that had to basically
two pieces to it and what I do in the first part is I attach the clasps, which
in this case we're the ones with a little bit of rhinestone. I used a split
ring to do it and I will show you how to put those on, put on both sides, then
once I'm done with that I find the centre of the chain, literally by counting
the links, because I'm just a little OCD and I like to start from the middle.
To me that's the best starting point because then I can make sure everything is
laid out evenly and it's balanced.
So, I added the first charm which is this one. I typically put a
not a huge one but a bigger one in the middle and then I work out and I lay out
on my silver charms, which is what I did here. All of these charms already have
split rings on them, or a jump ring or two, I think. So they're ready to go.
usually I would put them on at the same time that I put the split ring on, but
I just kind of wanted to show them to you and you can see this one for example,
I'm sure the camera will pick it up but this one has a smaller split ring on it,
as opposed to this heart one that has something in the back to attach to the
charm. I used a bigger one because of the way I wanted it to hang. I will, just
wanted to point out that split rings and jump rings come in different sizes, so
depending on how you want your charms and other little dangly things to dangle,
I guess.
How you know, how far down you want them to go or how you want
them to lay on the bracelet. You can you know, use a variety of sizes of those,
so make sure you're aware of that, if you decide to go and get any. To attach
the charms, like I said, you can use jump rings or split rings. If you use
sorry I'm fiddling with the charm, if you use split rings there is less of a
chance that the charm will come off the chain because the split ring is very
similar to that little ring that's on a keychain. You know the one we have to
bend it open and slide the keys on. That’s what you have to do here, you have
to kind of open up the wire and slide the chain on and you want to try and
avoid damaging the shape of the jump ring. You want it to be a nice pretty
circle to look good on your charm bracelet.
So you can open it using one of these tools, which is almost kind
of like a beak, or you can see that my camera doesn't want to focus on it.
Basically, it has a little pointed edge there that prise open, the two pieces
of wire, you could also use tweezers if you have a bent pair like this and you
can manoeuvre it in between the two pieces of wire and I know some of my crafty
friends use their nails, but that's going to damage your nail so I wouldn't
recommend it. I like this little tool, I picked it up, I think it was online at
an Etsy store for four or five dollars, so for me it was worth it, because it
works really well in helping to open that up. Hopefully you can kind of see how
it's doing that and basically you would just take a charm and you would slide
it on the part that's open, just like so. Pull your charm out and then you can
either finish pulling it around with your fingers or you could take one of your
sets of pliers. Hold on to the jump ring and just manoeuvre until it clicks all
the way through and there it is.
that's one way to do it. Another way that you can do this, let's
use this one, is a jump ring. Sometimes you're going to have to use a jump ring
because the part of the charm or button or whatever you're using, that you're
going to attach to the ring, is so thick that you can't open that split ring
wide enough. So you'll have to use a jump ring and they're perfectly fine,
again the idea is to not distort the or damage the shape of the jump ring. keep
it in that circle, so what you're doing is you're going to take a pair of, I'd
say I think they're flat nose pliers, basically flat edge, sorry I can't
remember the official names, but you're basically going to take hold of this
one side and the opening and the jump rings right up here at the top. you'll
take another set of the pliers like so and you'll bend it toward you or away
from you, but just one direction and you know you don't want to bend any more
than you have to.
Put on the charm, take your pliers back, bend it back and shape to
the circle and then there you have it. It’s all, it's on the jump ring and can
be attached to the bracelet, to the chain. Now normally when I'm doing this, I
would put them on the sterling silver chain at the same time. Typically makes
it a little bit easier. You know just to have to open it one time, but I just
kind of wanted to show you how that worked and that's how I'm going to do my
sterling silver charms.
I can't remember if I showed you that really well. so what I'm
going to do when I'm finished with this video is, I'm going to go through and
add all the charms here and then I will be back with part three, to show you
how I put together the little beads that I like to dangle off my charms and
we'll be adding those next and then buttons, will be the final stage and then
hopefully the bracelet will be done.
So thanks for watching, please let me know if you have any
comments or questions. Again not a professional, I'm not making fine jewellery but I'm happy to answer questions and help you out if I can. So
once again, thanks for watching and I hope you have a great day wherever you're
at. Bye.
