Beaded Bezel Video Tutorial

Happy Saturday friends! I spent the afternoon at the roller rink today. My girls were invited to a roller skate birthday and I’m not sure who had more fun, them or the moms, there were a few of us “rink rats” reliving our 1980’s glory days and I can still do the limbo on skates almost as well as any of the kids LOL! You do lose a certain edge in that game once you are over 5 feet tall but it is still fun to play! After 3 hours of skating I was ready to rest, I grabbed pizza on the way home and settled in for another power outage…luckily it was only out an hour for us. I think we have lost the power more times in the last 4 months than in the last 15 years we have lived here, crazy!

Earlier this week I posted  a beaded bezel project. I wanted to enclose some of the pretty yet dirt cheap flat backed marbles I had in my stash to make pendants with. It worked pretty well and I had a request for a video. I was worried that I would not be able to do a tutorial under 20 minutes and that it would be dreadfully boring, or confusing but it turns out I could communicate how to make this in a few easy steps. But first, here are the supplies you will need:

Supplies:

Flat glass marbles (or a gemstone if you want to be fancy), beading thread, 2 colors of seed beads and “E” beads, beading needle, super glue and scissors. Now let’s get beading. Feel free to pause the video when you need. You might have an easier time if you watch it through once first before you begin. Feel free to substitute for the colors you like and the beads you have on hand.

My daughters want to learn to make these so I wanted the steps to be simple as they have never done a bead pattern before. I started to teach Maizy this technique and she got it really quickly. I think making this tutorial helped me break it down to teach her so don’t be afraid to teach this to someone.

TIPS:

• I really like using the big eye beading needle but be aware that it can fray the thread where it is attached so if you need to join thread make sure you do it before you come to the thread in the needle to be sure it is strong. Also I’m not sure how long the big eye needles will hold up but the time I save not having to thread those tiny needles it worth the $2.47 for a pack of four.
• When I showed my daughter how to make these I used Toho Treasure Beads (I grabbed a couple tubes on sale for $1 at Consumer Crafts last year and wish I bought more) because they are consistent in size and the holes seem to be larger so no stuck needle frustration. One YouTube viewer recommends having a balloon handy to grip the needle if it gets stuck.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. I love that the supplies are inexpensive yest you can make something completely beautiful and unique just by varying the beads and focal marble you use. Let me know if you try it and if you are so inclined you can share a picture of your creation on thefrugalcrafter community facebook page! Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting.