Make Your Own Beads and Components
Every jewelry artist knows the rewarding feeling of taking jewelry designs from imagination to creation. When you make your own beads and components for those designs, the experience is even more amazing. Consider these different mediums and find a whole new world of jewelry-making to fall in love with!
Polymer Clay
Mold, shape and create your own beads and components with polymer clay. This versatile sculpting material allows you to make any size, shape and color combination imaginable. Design with clay cutters, molds, plates and rollers, and pop your creations into a clay craft-oven to finish.
Apoxie® Sculpt and Findings
With both the sculpting benefits of clay and the adhesive power of epoxy, Apoxie Sculpt can be sculpted into beads and is ideal for creating pavé-style jewelry designs. This epoxy works well with clay tools and is great for setting Crystal Passions® flat backs and chatons into mounts and findings with channels.
Vitrium® Clay
Create one-of-a-kind, lightweight beads and focals with Vitrium Clay. This resin clay can be rolled very thin without cracking and easily air dries. Mix it with pigments, markers or ink pens for customized colors or use as is to design miniature works of art.
Metalsmithing
Design customized metal beads, focals and more through metalsmithing. You'll find tools and supplies to stamp, punch, texture, antique, engrave and embellish metal--and the metal blanks, sheets and wire to create with. Serious metalsmithing tools like torches, hammers, anvils and saws will get you going.
Metal Clays
Customization is hot in the jewelry industry--with metal clays you can create personalized beads, focals and findings in fine silver, 22Kt gold, bronze and copper. Shape, roll, sculpt, stamp and texture your own metal beads, fire them in a kiln (or with a torch), and finish with the metalsmithing tools and techniques mentioned above.
Glass
Fuse your own glass creations using glass pieces, cutting tools, molds and a high-quality kiln made especially for use inside your microwave. Become a bonafide glass artisan in your own kitchen! Experiment by "painting" your own designs with enamel multipens and soldering foil rims to the edges of glass pieces.
Glass Cabochons and Settings
Highlight photos, miniature art work, fashionable fabrics and more behind clear glass cabochons. Designs are magnified when placed under the cabochons, which work great with bezels and flat pad findings.
Cool Embellishments
Experiment with these fun jewelry-making products to set your handcrafted beads and components apart from the rest.
Design with...
- Gilders Paste® - Accent polymer clay, wood, porcelain and metal with these colorful pastes.
- Metal leaf- Add metallic effects to polymer clay.
- Mica Powder- A great material for providing vivid color and a pearly, metallic look without using metal, mica powder works well on polymer clay, resin and more.
- Omni-Gel™ for photo transfer - Transfer photos to glass, metal, fabric, leather and canvas with this innovative liquid.
- Resin- Create clear domes in bezels, and mix this resin with tiny beads and more.
- Enameling- Enamel is essentially granules of glass that are applied to metal, and a torch or kiln is used to fuse the glass onto the metal surface.
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