Featured Beader: PepeNewton

A very talented beader and jewellery designer we have got to know over the years is Pepe Newton. Pepe has an exciting range of earrings, necklaces, rings, brooches and more including novel bag-tags and her “knucklebones” game set.  As Pepe states in her Etsy bio, she is a lover of symmetry in nature and her her work often features snowflakes and flowers as a result. We here at Empire Beads love the strong designs and the clever way she extends her work through her bold, symmetrical shapes.

To show off Pepe’s work, we have chosen to showcase one of her many lovely pieces – this one is Pepe’s Pearly Starflower Earrings featuring our Glass Shiny Pearls in a shiny white oval and our pearlised Czech Seed Beads hung on a shiny silver fish hook. We won’t give away her secrets about how she holds them together, other than to say that interesting and dynamic effects can be achieved by employing a variety of beading wires and threads within a single piece. Very Clever!

Pepe Newton sells her work through her Etsy Store and you can keep up to date with her through Twitter.

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 single colour. In this case (and for Valentines Day) we have chosen a Milky 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!