This DIY project went through a few transformations before I finally settled on this particular design, and I have to say I love the way it came out. My original intent was for it to just be a plain clustered necklace that was much shorter in length, lying closer to my collarbone. But the more I worked with it, the more it just felt a little too mature. I tried braiding it, and while it looked cool, it also looked too young, almost bordering on tweenish. Finally this morning, it came to me to attach it to an existing old necklace I had on hand that was missing its pendant, and leave it as a simple long draped necklace. So while this necklace really only took about 4-6 hours to make, it took over 4 weeks for me to finally settle on a design I loved.

For this project you’ll need the following, as well as a steady hand and just a bit of patience. Stringing seed beads is tedious, yet strangely very therapeutic work. I string a little at a time, usually in front of the TV at night and stop when my fingers get tired.

Start by double knotting the filament wire around the jump ring like so{*Please see on how to properly tie off strung seed beads using crimp beads}

And then you just start threading your beads. There are tools that work like channels that help you string your beads more quickly, but I just do it the old-fashioned way.

A little trick I have is to pour out some beads on a flat surface, and then lightly moisten my finger tip with my tongue so the beads can easily stick to my finger, and then pick them up one by one, maneuvering the filament wire to easily pick up each bead. Sounds weird and kinda gross, but it’s an effective technique.