For each pair of earrings, you’ll need:

Two semi-precious beads (all of mine came from Beyond Beads in San Francisco, one of my favorite places to shop)
Two earring wires
Two headpins
Pliers

1. Following the Solo Earrings instructions on page 32 of Bead Simple (or this video tutorial I made), place each bead on a headpin and create a wrapped loop above it. An illustrated sequence for the wrapped loop is also on pages 20-21 in the book, for reference.

2. Clip the wire tail and press it flush with the coil above the bead. Now open your earring wire and slip the bead dangle inside, closing the earring wire loop securely afterwards. Repeat to make the second earring.

3. Wrap them any way you’d like — I sewed some Tiny Ribboned Gift Bags (how-to over here) for mine, but you could tie them together with a ribbon, tuck them into a little box, or add them to another gift, too.

I also made Pearl’s main teacher a Black Agate Circle Deluxe Pendant — just follow the directions on page 121 to create your own! I put hers on an 18-inch chain instead of the neckwire the jade version in the book has, and added a simple clasp with jump rings — there’s a video showing how to do that here.

If you’re interested, I also have two more holiday craft tutorials up today — please go check them out if you’d like to!

The Tiny Ribboned Gift Bags I mentioned are over at West Coast Crafty,

and I designed a Tiny-Eyed Owl Ornament project for Button It Up!

I hope you have wonderful holidays and plenty of time to make pretty things! Thank you for your lovely support of Bead Simple the last almost-two years (!) and I’ll see you in the new year with more beading and jewelry ideas and sources to share!

I am a huge fan of the Knittn Kitten vintage craft supply store here in Portland, and I was sad to hear that they’ve been having a tough time lately. So a group of of us are contributing free weekly craft patterns (to make everything from necklaces and beaded hairpins to iron-on patches and pincushions) to shoppers who support the store… you just need to stop by the Kitten, ask for the free pattern sheet at the counter, and buy your supplies to make the project!

Every Tuesday there will be a new project sheet up for grabs. This week (starting yesterday, September 22), Heather Mann is offering up a how-to for making the lovely Anthropologie-inspired Statement Necklace above, using all Kitten materials. And her project sheet includes a bonus pattern for this necklace, too!

And next week Teresa Sullivan will be contributing instructions for this intricate Seed Bead Hairpin project — you can make flowers or skulls with wire and seed beads. (And if you haven’t seen Teresa’s beading work before, do yourself a favor and visit her site — it’s incredible!)

Here’s the full schedule of free craft projects, a new one each week:

September 22 – Heather
September 29 – Teresa
October 6 – Diane Gilleland
October 13 – Joey Groendes
October 20 – Christine Blystone
October 27 – Me!
November 3 – Lee Meredith
November 10 – Bridget Benton

Stay tuned to the Knittn Kitten flickr group for pictures and details on the projects to come!

Sandra made some really lovely pieces, including Duo Earrings,

a Duo Pendant,

and a Beadweaving Bracelet.

And Marty made her own exuberant version of a Sparkle Cocktail Brooch!

Here it is (in progress) with its cousins from the book.

If you make anything from Bead Simple, please add photos to the flickr pool or email me, I’d love to see your projects!

In other book news, Taunton is having a 25% off end-of summer sale — including signed copies of Bead Simple, which are now $14.96 instead of $19.95. Snap up a copy of my book or one of their other craft titles — over 600 of them are on sale, including Button It Up!

And CRAFT: is running a fantastic sale on all their craft kits in the Maker Shed, too, with at least 15% off everything in stock. Vintagesque Necklace kits are marked down to $5 (usually $12)

and Solo Earrings kits are $2.50 (usually $6). So cool!

The Continuing Education department has put together a fantastic line-up of classes, and they’re offering a very generous giveaway this week if you help spread the word about them…

from the blog:
We have a nice package of promotional items to give away. This includes a signed copy of Susan Beal’s Button It Up, Denyse Schmidt’s Quilt-It Kit, a yard of County Fair, Patchwork Promenade Print by Denyse Schmidt and a Summer of Making Poster. To win leave a comment on the blog, become a fan of Summer of Making on Facebook or mention us on your Facebook profile or blog. You will get one entry for each of these (maximum of 4). We will randomly select the winner June 21.

I am very honored to be one of the teachers alongside some of my favorite crafters. Denyse Schmidt is coming to teach a two-day workshop, which I am so excited to take! Jess Beebe is teaching By Hand: Needlework and Macrame, Sarah Schlosser-Moon is teaching Artful Blogging, Brenda Mallory is teaching Contemporary Fiber Art, and I am teaching Bead and Button Jewelry.

I’m so excited about this class. We’ll have four days to work on jewelry, beading and embellishment techniques of all types, a luxurious amount of time to make things! Bead + Button Jewelry meets Monday through Thursday, July 20-23 from 10-3 in a nice big classroom with natural light at PNCA — all the details are here.

from the website:
In this hands-on class, students will learn and practice a range of beading, jewelry-making and embellishment techniques, including wirework, stringing, weaving, knotting, gluing, hand-sewing, and other craft methods. Bring in your own favorite pieces to design around, complementing them with vintage and new beads, buttons, findings, chain, fabric, and other materials from Susan’s collection.

Aside from the nuts and bolts of practical making, we’ll focus on color, balance, arrangements, and intuitive design – creating a collection of jewelry and other crafts that bring your treasures to life. With four days to work together, we’ll create a collection of instant favorites for gifts or for yourself, while building a strong foundation for designing future projects with your new skills.

The projects we create will reflect each student’s personal sense of style and other favorite elements – instead of a cookie-cutter approach, each designer will enjoy the flexibility to focus on what he or she prefers.

If you want to know more about any of the classes, you can download a syllabus for each one on its page at the Summer of Making site. And if you have any questions about mine in particular, please ask away over here!

One last thing: if you are interested in taking Bead + Button Jewelry, I would be thrilled to have some crafty friends in the class. If anyone who registers mentions that they read my blog or either of my book sites (or have checked out my flickr, or know me through Portland stuff) I will put together a special package of vintage beads and buttons as a thank-you! You can leave a comment here or just let me know the first day of class, and I’ll put something fun together with some of your favorite colors and styles and bring it for you to craft with the second day and beyond.

p.s. I’m cross-posting this announcement on West Coast Crafty and Button It Up, so sorry for the exact repetition if you see it more than once, but since the class ties together techniques from both of my books, I’d like to spread the word in all directions!

So if you’d like to check that out, it’s over here!

Another project I did there recently that I really like is this re-sparkled flower-embellished handbag.

It’s quite a bit like the Blossom Book project color-wise (down to using the same favorite amber rhinestone on a black background for the flower centers!) but expands the idea into a more intricate design over a bigger palette.

I have some more news to share later this week: I’m teaching a jewelry-making class later this summer that I’m very excited about! More on all that soon…

tools + materials photo from Button It Up by Burcu Avsar + Zach DeSart

I hope it’s helpful if you’re wrestling with a jewelry repair — it includes written instructions, some detail photos, and two videos I’ve made. And one of them, which shows how to open and close jump rings to securely attach a clasp or turn a charm into a pendant, is brand-new!

I’ve been swamped this year with a new book, a new baby, and my usual freelance jobs, so it’s been slow going uploading the handful of videos I filmed for Bead Simple last spring… I’m much more of a crafter than a filmmaker, to say the least, and wrangling file sizes and formatting are kind of an obstacle course to an amateur like me. I’m sure any 14-year-old would whip them up in a flash but it’s taken me awhile! I hope you like the new one, though — I put it on the technique videos + patterns page and it is on YouTube right here too. More to come one of these days, I promise.

It has 80 projects to make with vintage (and new) buttons — plenty of jewelry, plus housewares, gifts, accessories, and embellishments — along with a techniques and materials section, a resources guide, and a short history of buttons. I’ve made a book website for it with lots more information and some bonus patterns and tutorials.

And starting this week, I’ll be doing a few crafty book events — if you are local, I’d love to see you at one of them!

Friday, 3/20: make button hairclips at Powell’s Books, 1005 W. Burnside St. in downtown Portland, 503-228-4651

Saturday, 3/28: make button magnets at Bolt Fabric Boutique, 2136 NE Alberta St in Portland, 503-287-BOLT

Here’s a little Bead Simple news, too: first, the Bolt event will have some crafty prizes up for grabs, including a store gift certificate, a button collection, fabric, and a signed copy of Bead Simple. Everyone who comes to the party will be entered in the drawing!

And I’ve made all my Bead Simple kits in my Etsy shop part of the fundraiser to benefit Baby Ike and the Roy family in Austin, Texas.

If you are interested, you can find out lots more information at the Ikeasaurus website. Thanks to everyone who is part of this effort.

And today is the last day to enter to win a copy of my guest designer Kathy Cano Murillo’s new book, The Crafty Chica’s Guide to Artful Sewing, over at CraftStylish! You can enter here and read a review I wrote here. Congratulations, Kathy!!

I have always used simple plastic boxes with compartments inside to store most of my beads and charms, sorted by color. So when I got the chance to overhaul everything, I pared down what I wasn’t using and passed it along, and then made beaded labels to show what color or type was inside each organizer at a glance…

and then I stacked them all on an open bookshelf so I could see them all at once.

The photo above has notes all over on flickr, if you’re interested in even more of my nerdy craft room organizing details…

So if you’re looking for an easy way to get your stash straight, and want to try making simple embellished labels like these, I wrote up a tutorial over at CraftStylish.

All you need is cardstock, a hot glue gun, double-stick tape, and a handful of beads or rhinestones (that you have tons of so you won’t miss four or five), and you’re good to go! As a craft-room clean-up bonus, I started using a simple little plastic paint palette (89¢ from the art supply store) to round up all my loose bits and pieces in one handy spot — that way I can put them all away at once instead of one by one by one.

I’d love to hear your favorite tips for keeping your beads and jewelry-making stuff organized, if you have any to share…

In the meantime, I wanted to share some free beading and jewelry-making tutorials I’ve posted weekly over the last few months at CraftStylish. Here’s the one that went up today, a set of felt fortune cookies + rings just in time for Valentine’s Day. I really like this project — it is super fun to do and the teeny-tiny fortune-cookie ring is very cute on.

I’ve been contributing over there for the last year (mostly about jewelry-making and beading, with some general crafts and other stuff in the mix) along with some of my favorite crafters like Diane, Kayte, Linda, Lee, and Jennifer. CraftStylish has tons of great how-tos organized by type — crochet, embroidery, sewing, paper crafts, and a bunch of others — and you can search for what you’re especially interested in to narrow it down. It’s such a nice mix of stuff and I really recommend stopping by to check it all out!

Here are a good handful of my favorite jewelry and embellishment projects I’ve done for the site, if you liked Bead Simple and you’re looking for more projects to try. I would love to hear what you think of them! If you click the photo collage, it will lead you to direct links to each project tutorial, or you can see my whole archive of projects and other crafty posts here.

I’ll be back this week with another book-related post and I am looking forward to hanging out here more often! By the way, if you are interested in more crafty stuff, I write a lot more frequently at my West Coast Crafty blog, just for fun, and you might like that too.

It should be a really cool afternoon, with dozens of Oregon authors who write in different genres there — I am super excited about meeting Chelsea Cain, seeing Caren and Carl of Velveteria, and getting my copies of The Portland Bridge Book, Portland: People, Politics and Power, and An Architectural Guidebook to Portland signed. I’m sure I’ll find lots more good books, too — all the sales benefit the Oregon Historical Society, which is a nice bonus. Anyway, I’d love to see some crafty folks there! Thank you to OHS for having me, and especially to Lucy for suggesting me as a participant.

Also, my friend (and Bead Simple contributor) Linda has organized a fantastic fundraiser to benefit her sister Ann’s family while her brother-in-law Jasenn fights kidney cancer. Her Etsy shop, Hope for Jasenn, has a really lovely array of crafty gifts from lots of people in this community, with more on the way. Linda says, “100% of the profits from every item sold in this shop will be donated to Jasenn, Ann and Tegue to help with their everyday expenses. All of the items in this shop have been donated by generous crafters and friends, and I’d love to show my sister’s family just how supportive we crafty folks can be.” So I wanted to mention that I have two sets of my new earring kits for sale there, if you happen to be interested. Thanks!