Taking up a new hobby, whether for business or pleasure can get expensive, especially when you don't know what the bare essential tools are. But making your own hand-crafted jewellery doesn't have to be complicated or expensive when you know exactly what essential jewellery-making tools you need to get started.
Bead shops and websites can often be daunting places for a beginner who is starting out a jewellery crafting hobby, and it is far too easy to overspend. Use this straightforward check-list and guide to purchasing your first jewellery-making tools.
Jewellery-making Kits for Beginners
Many bead shops and websites actually sell starter kits for beginner jewellery-making hobbyists. This can be an inexpensive way to get started and learn the craft. Often you can find affordable jewellery project kits that include all of the materials and instructions needed to make a specific piece of jewellery. However, for complete beginners these packs are limiting and do not cater for mistakes, practice, and experimentation. These kits don't usually contain all of the necessary tools needed to make jewellery, and certain things like pliers and cutters must be purchased separately.
Jewellery Pliers and Cutters
It can start to get a bit confusing when beginning to shop for pliers because the range is extensive. Really, a beginner jewellery hobbyist only needs two sets of pliers. Flat-nosed pliers are used for gripping and manipulating the jewellery wire, and round-nosed pliers are used for making loops. Wire cutters are also required for trimming. A set of three — two pairs of pliers and a pair of wire cutters — can often be purchased together in an economical pack.
Sets of mini pliers and wire cutters are also available. These are useful for travelling, but are not necessarily recommended for beginners because the craft can be intricate enough as it is without having to deal with smaller sized tools. It is best to invest in the normal-sized tools until you get used to handling them.
Jewellery Wire
The task of choosing jewellery craft wire can be daunting. There is the hardness of the wire to consider which is graded from 0-4 (soft to hard). Softer wires are more flexible whereas harder wires are good for keeping specific shapes. Also, the wire gauge is important to consider as thicker gauges won't be able to thread through smaller bead holes.
NOTE: the bigger the gauge the thinner the wire and vice versa.
Then, there is the varied choice of metals. The cheaper copper wire is often plated with sterling silver or gold; whereas 95% sterling silver wire is much more expensive and often costs according to weight. Wire also comes in various different colours which can be fun to experiment with.
For the beginner it is best to keep things simple and just go for an average 1mm wire. A silver-plated wire is affordable and easy to manipulate with pliers. Dealing with stiffer wires can be hard on fingers that aren't used to working with wire.
Beads and Semi-Precious Stones
Choosing and shopping for beads and stones is the fun part of designing jewellery. Beads come in all different shapes, sizes, and materials. The beginner jewellery maker should consider what colour scheme they want for their hand-crafted piece of jewellery, and make sure that the holes in the beads are big enough or small enough for the wire being used.
Selections of beads can often be purchased in small packs which is good value for money and provides an interesting variety of shapes, sizes, colours and shades. Usually these beads are made from plastic or glass.
More experienced jewellery artists will like to shop for semi-precious stones to use in their jewellery-making. Beginners should avoid semi-precious stones to begin with as they can be expensive. Semi-precious stones can be bought as strings of stone-chips which tend to be cheap enough for beginners to experiment with without having to worry about waste or overspending.
Jewellery Findings
Finally you will need a small selection of findings, which are the extra jewellery-making components needed to finish-off the jewellery pieces.
Some essential jewellery findings are listed below...
- Jump rings are used to link components together. They are simply small pieces of wire twisted into hoops with a slit so that they can be bent open and closed to fasten components together.
- Clasps are used to fasten necklaces and bracelets. Lobster clasps are most widely used and most affordable, but toggle clasps and magnetic clasps are alternative options.
- Head Pins are short pieces of wire with a head at one end which prevents beads from slipping off. The wire can then be hooped and used to attach the bead to earrings so that the bead hangs. Head pins can also be used to hang beads as pendants off necklaces, or as charms off bracelets.
You should choose findings in a metal that corresponds with the wire you have chosen for your project.
