Saturday, April 26, 2008

Working With Gemstone Chips


When I took the string out of my peridot chips I thought OHHHH NOOOO! This is going to be a long night to try to string any of these to make any thing. So I got an idea. I laid them out on my bead board and turned on two lights. One was next to me and the other across the room to hold up the bead and see the hole! My bead board has inches marked of on it and I could separate everything into two rows for my double stringed Peridot and Citrine necklace. I pushed the peridot chips into the grooves of the bead board. That just made an organized mess! I found it was EASIER to work from the focal Citrine Bead out to the ends of the string. I Just picked up the big peridot chips first and took turns stringing them on the beading wire evenly on either side of the Citrine. I used a clip on the side I wasn't working on. I measured as I strung and only after they were on the string. I made sure they were tight when I measured. I believe this technique made this necklace look quiet nice.