Watches with Bling Gemstones and Beads Jewelry Making Project          Page 3

Step 8:   When you have both wires positioned correctly, wrap the shorter wire around the longer wire one full wrap.  At this point the long wire should point directly away from the center of the finding and the middle of the watch. 

Step 9:  Cut the excess wire and using your bent chain nose pliers, squeeze the cut end flat. 

Step 10:  Now we  need to add a wrapped loop at the end of the wire.  This is done with your round nose pliers just like you would for making a bead dangle.  You can view these steps here.  The process is straightforward.   You first make a 90 degree bend in the wire using your bent chain nose pliers, then you use your round nose pliers to make a relatively small loop at the bend.  Finally, you grasp the loop you just made in your bent chain nose pliers and while holding that loop, you wrap the wire around the wire coming from the watch face about 2 times.  Cut the excess wire and using your bent chain nose pliers squeeze the cut end flat.  Do steps 6 through 10 on both ends of your watch face. 

Step 11:  Now you are ready to string your beads.  For the watch shown at right, 10 inches of Soft Touch, size .010 or .014 doubled were used on each side of the watch.  It is not necessary to double the Soft Touch, but being fanatical about strength in jewelry this is what we do.  The 10 inch segment of Soft Touch was folded in half.  At the mid-point, the end of the Soft Touch was threaded through one of the end loops in the watch face.  Once enough Soft Flex was through the loop the opposite end of the two strands of Soft Touch was threaded through the loop created by the mid-point of the wire.  Then the Soft Touch was pulled tight.  A single crimp bead was used to hold that end of the Soft Touch.  For details on how to fix a crimp bead using crimping pliers visit here. 

With the Soft Touch bead stringing wire in place, you now need to thread a combination of beads onto the Soft Touch.  Your goal is that the distance from the center of the watch to the end of the clasp on that side of the watch should be 3 3/4" for a standard 7 1/2" watchband.  For an 8" watchband use 4" per side.  6mm beads separated by size 11 S/L seed beads work well.  In the above watch band a combination of ruby red beads and crystal A/B beads were used to match the watch face and gemstones. 

The clasp used above is a 6mm sterling silver magnetic clasp (Item 0339).  When using a magnetic clasp it is almost mandatory that you also incorporate a 3" guard chain.  At the end of the beads were strung two 2x2mm crimp beads, the guard chain, then the clasp and finally both strands of Soft Touch were threaded back through the two crimp beads and the first regular bead.  The slack was carefully removed from the Soft Touch and when everything was in position, the two crimp beads were squeezed closed one at a time using the bead crimping pliers.