Hearts Desire

Valentine’s Day is universally the day of love and here at Empire Beads we think there is no better way to show it than with cute, heart shaped jewellery.

Our wonderful team have put together this Heart’s Desire Earring and Necklace Set featuring our Czech Glass Heart Shaped beads (on Sale until 18th Feb 2010). They are very cute and are something you can make.

The trick to these stylish pieces is to build the effect by “layering” beads of a variety of shapes and sizes, but all of a similar colour. In this case (and for Valentines Day) we have chosen a Pink from our Czech Glass Range. The feature beads are, of course the Limited Edition Pink Czech Glass Hearts. Rising Above those, we have added Czech Glass Round Beads in 4mm, 6mm and 8mm. These are threaded onto an eye-pin and adorned with three uneven lengths of our Fine Cable Chain (a total of 12 cm cut at 3cm, 4 cm and 5 cm) and finished with a small, 4mm Light Rose Swarovksi Crystal Bead fixed with a head-pin.

To make the Earrings, fix these centre-pieces to our fish-hooks, using round-nose pliers to carefully create a loop tight into the end beads and flat nose pliers to open and close the loop.  For the Necklace, create a similar loop and then add more of the Czech Glass Beads, separated by 2 cm lengths of chain. These are placed in the order of 4mm, 6mm, 8mm and then finally 6mm. (TIP: You can use the off-cuts from the head-pin used to fix the Swarovski Crystals to the chain to make the pins for the beads on the necklace). Cut your final length of chain for either side as you see fit and finish with one of our clasps & ends of your choice.

This is a project which took our team about 40 minutes and required only the pieces described above, our round-nose pliers, some flat nose pliers and a pair of wire cutters to finish. We hope you enjoy making these cute Valentine’s Day beads and win some hearts on the day!

Featured Beader: DSPDAVEY

Our Empire Beads beaders are always delighting us with the creative and elegant ways in which they use our products.

One of our newer customers, DSPDavey (and WELCOME! to Empire Beads) has shared with us one of her creations using our Glass Pearl Pendants. Using these elegant Pearl Drops, Deborah has created a stylish cluster which creates an elegant drop, looped through a silver loop. Most of the components Deborah has used are available from Empire Beads. Our Premium Silver Colour Chain, Eyepins and Jumprings can all be used as components for these pieces.

Deborah is an avid jewellery maker and you can see more of her work on her Etsy Store and her Zibbet store. You can also follow Deborah through Twitter (and of course don’t forget to Follow us on Twitter as well).

Thank you again Deborah for sharing your beautiful work with us.