Seed Bead Jewelry Projects
I’ve been creating beaded jewelry projects, including bracelets, earrings, necklaces, and pins for many years. When I originally got interested in beaded jewelry, my very first projects were DIY seed bead earrings. Due to their small size, simple seed bead earrings are very easy to make and go together pretty quickly compared to most other beaded jewelry projects.
Beaded earrings also don’t take up a lot of space and I often carried a small plastic organization case in my tote bag. The bead organizer or craft tote bag was filled with various colors of seed beads, bugle beads, beading needles, Nymo or Silamide thread, and a selection of small drop beads for the fringe including sterling silver, freshwater pearls, and other gemstones. I always had an easy seed bead earring project or two to work on even when I was away from home, participating in craft shows, or visiting friends.
Adding Bling to Your Designs
For simple brick stitch seed bead earrings, such as the ones shown in this post, I choose a selection of seed beads, bugle beads, and small accent beads for the fringe and start beading. If you are looking for more intricate designs to follow, there are many great free beading patterns available online and in various arts and crafts publications such as Beadwork magazine. You can even create your own original seed bead earring designs either using a beading software program or go old school with seed bead graph paper and an assortment of colored pencils.
All the brick stitch seed bead earring patterns I’m featuring in this blog post are made from size 11/0 seed beads using the brick stitch technique. Although size 11 seed beads are very tiny they aren’t that difficult to work with. Earrings go together rather quickly, compared to say a large beaded necklace. I start each earring out with a row of bugle beads or a base row made from a 3 seed bead stack – see photos for details.
I always thought the most fun part of making earrings is the beaded fringe. I love using a variety of accent beads in the fringe including glass drops, Swarovski crystals, freshwater pearls and other semi-precious gemstones, and even small sterling silver or gold-filled beads. When it comes to beaded earrings my opinion is that you can never have too much fringe!
Native American Beadwork
My first foray into seed bead jewelry was inspired by Native American beadwork (according to my mom there is Native American blood somewhere in our family history although I’m hoping to do a bit of family tree research to verify if this is true or not). There are many great books available that include patterns for authentic and Native American-inspired beadwork designs. Once you follow a few published patterns and seed bead earrings tutorials in books or magazines it won’t be too long before you’ll want to try your hand at creating your own original seed bead designs.
The very first beading book I ever purchased was Sadie Starr Presents Beading with Seed Beads, Gemstones, and Cabochons. Sadie is the great, great niece of famed outlaw Myra Maybelle Shirley, aka Belle Starr. She sounds like an interesting character, I read this on her Wikipedia page, “Belle Starr was crack shot, she used to ride sidesaddle while dressed in a black velvet riding habit and a plumed hat, carrying two pistols, with cartridge belts across her hips. In 1880, she married a Cherokee man named Sam Starr and settled with the Starr family where she learned ways of organizing, planning and fencing for the rustlers, horse thieves and bootleggers, as well as harboring them from the law.”
Beadwork Inspiration
Anyways, Sadie’s book was literally my beaded jewelry-making textbook as I taught myself bead embroidery, brick stitch beading, beaded loom weaving and much more. A few years later I purchased her companion book (Beading with Seed Beads, Gemstones, and Cabochons Volume 2) that included all new projects and additional seed bead earring ideas and beaded jewelry-making techniques such as beaded netting and right-angle weave.
Both of Sadie’s books are filled with tons and tons and TONS of color and B/W images so it’s very easy to follow along and teach yourself how to make bead jewelry. I can’t tell you how many seed bead jewelry projects I created, from seed bead earrings, bracelets, necklaces, pins and more, using Sadie Starr’s books as inspiration.
I’m sad to say I got rid of both books years ago during one of my major moves from a giant house to a teeny tiny apartment. I wish I had a Way Back Machine where I could presto-change-o go back in time and grab a few of my old beaded jewelry books. Oh well, I still remember how to create most of the beadwork techniques but it’s always nice to have a few books to thumb through for inspiration.
Look for future blog posts on The Creative Cottage featuring my recommendations for bead magazines, bead books and bead design software.
Let’s Keep in Touch
Do you have any tips or tricks you’d like to share? Leave a comment on this post or shoot me an email: info@thecreativecottage.net and I just might feature your story in a future blog post.
Take care,
Lynn Smythe
Founder and Chief Blogger
The Creative Cottage
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Interesting article! I’ll look out for more on your blog
Thank you Audrey! I don’t do a lot with seed beads anymore – so tiny. In recent years I’ve gotten into fused glass. But who knows, my beaded embroidery projects were some of my favorites so maybe someday I will go back to making beaded jewelry.