Famous Jewelry Collections: THE BEADING GEM'S JOURNAL

Monday, September 26, 2011

THE BEADING GEM'S JOURNAL

How to Make Beaded Grape Clusters Tutorials

Posted: 26 Sep 2011 04:57 AM PDT

The Reader Question thread is where I pick an emailed question or a blog post comment to answer and share with everyone.

Madeleine, a new blog reader from South Africa emailed me and said "I love the way you write – it's as if you're sitting right next to me having a chat.... Would you be so kind and point me in the right direction to find tutorials on how to assemble clusters of seed beads etc. to form "grape" like earrings and pendants? It looks so interesting and a real challenge."

Thanks Madeleine for the kind words and for being the inspiration behind this post. There are indeed tutorials which will help you create what you want.

The Bead Flower Angel has a 3D beaded grapes charm tutorial on the Bead Jewelry Making site. She said in a forum post , "I used seed beads, adopting the Right Angle Weave technique. You can always differ the size of the beaded grapes by changing the bead size, you can even use crystal for bigger beaded crystal grapes. Great as earrings, pendant, phone charm, bag charm or wine charm!"

Why stop at grapes? She's also got a fantastic collection of other beaded fruit tutorials including apples, cherries, strawberries, pears and watermelon!

If you'd rather not use seed beads, then check the tutorial by Celia Martin. She uses little tear drop beads which are sometimes called tiny tims or fringe drops. They do make the project go faster as they are larger than seed beads.

For something more ambitious, check out the free grape clusters necklace project from Bead and Button magazine's site. You have to register with them (free) to get the download. The cluster construction is different from Celia's.

However, if you aren't into beading, check out the following tutorials. The chain and wire wrapped bead tutorial was designed by Angela Womach for Rings and Things.