Jewelry Design Ideas

Jewelry Design basics

Jewelry design is so much easier if you have hands on experience or are prepared to learn the basic technique of making pieces of jewelry. Beading and jewelry design around beading techniques would be a good place to start developing the craft of jewelry making. It will be necessary to become familiar with many different types of materials from precious gems, gemstone beads, charms, glass beads, crystals, and clasps to several precious metals and much more besides. It is vital that you have an understanding of the properties of metals including melting temperatures and soldering techniques.

Simple jewelry ideas and design

Walmart or Home Depot will have what is needed for basic design projects. Buy some chunky chain and some ribbon (and Velcro). 12 inches of chain will suffice along with a yard or more of satin ribbon (double sided is best) and you can expect to pay less than $4 for them. You don’t need to be able to sew, nor do you need tools or to be an expert at art and crafts to make nice jewelry.

Jewelry design with Sodalite gemstones

Sodalite is a natural gemstone with true beauty which varies in color from blue to violet with white calcite traces. Sodalite is a lustrous opaque stone well suited for making jewelry; it looks like Lapis Lazuli but is more economic to buy. The contemporary beaded necklace (as shown) is made from sodalite and is a beautiful blueberry color (the beads are about the size of small blueberries too).

The oils from your skin will cause the sodalite to darken in color over a period of time but the solution is to wash the beads in warm soapy water to restore them to their original color. Some healers believe that the wearing sodalite jewelry can help reduce the severity of headaches in migraine sufferers and in some cases eliminate headaches altogether.

Thinking about jewelry design

Sodalite has a bit of history surrounding it but so too do others gems. Ruby is the gemstone closely linked to love and the diamond, of course, is timeless (diamonds are forever) so a piece of jewelry with both rubies and diamonds would signify forever love or lifelong love. If you can afford to give someone a jewelry piece like this it is a great way of saying I love you. The jewelry you design must have more to it than its mere physical presence.

Jewelry design software

Jewelry design software is available for those who can afford it but some freeware is available too where you can design small necklace pieces. It is possible to design necklaces using computer software and then save your creation to file and then print your design ready for the workshop. If you are unsure of the design you want you can start with some basic numeric symbols or astrology signs and work from there but the software will assist you.

Starting jewelry design

The easiest jewelry to make is with beads and all you need is a selection of beads and stringing material but not forgetting special ‘stop’ beads to contain the stringed ones. Once you have made your first necklace or bracelet, you are then in a position to design the improvements or you might want to start from scratch with a new idea based on your experience. For instance you might wish to combine glass beads with seed beads on the one necklace.

Stringing ideas for jewelry

Wire size is measured and comes in different gauge sizes. The lower value gauge numbers signify big diameters of wire and vice versa so a wire with a small thin diameter will have a large gauge reference. Beadwork would typically require wire with 24 or 26 gauges. These are minor details but necessary ones for a jewelry designer to know.

Wire can be bought in different lengths but the cross section of the wire is an important consideration. By far, the most popular one is circular (round) wire but square, triangular and oval varieties can be bought for specific tasks. In addition, all the wire can be purchased in a soft, medium or hard form. All of these factors must be considered for your designs.

Chain, leather and ribbon stringing are the alternatives to wire, and again they come in various shapes and sizes.

To make a necklace or bracelet

To make the necklace cut two ribbon pieces of equal length and tie them to the end links of the chain leaving a loop for the knot behind your neck, which will be discrete. Try it on and adjust until it feels comfortable on you and has the desired effect.

Apply the same principal for bracelets but with smaller chain lengths and perhaps thinner ribbon. It works better if you use the same chain type for both the necklace and bracelet. Make sure to have them cut to size in the store as this will save you some work on chunky chains.

Jewelry designing kits

Jewelry making kits containing hundreds of beads and other basic materials, plus some small tools, might be fun Xmas gifts for children. These kits allow you to make fully strung piece of jewelry or a small bracelet with a good luck charm attached.

If you are older you may wish to take a more adventurous or serious approach to jewelry making and jewelry design but a deal of hard work will ensue before you become proficient but it is work of the most rewarding kind.