Is That Chain? Clever Uses for Chain in Jewelry Design

Chain can give a jewelry design personality, and depending on your chain choice, you can alter the look of the design dramatically. Besides the traditional use of chain in jewelry design, you can also use chain in unexpected ways by cutting the chain apart and using its individual components as design elements themselves. Below are some clever uses of chain in earrings and necklaces.

You can use scalloped bar chain to create structure for your other chains and give you design an interesting shape. Each bar can be separated out to become individual bar segments. Think of the scallops as little bar links. and connect to them with jump rings. You can also do this with straight bar chain

Sequin chain is fun because in just 1 foot of the chain, you get SO many little 6mm round sequins that you can cut apart and use. Each sequin has two holes in it, on opposite ends, making it ideal to use as little connectors. In the jewelry design below, the Carnelian Princess Necklace, you can see how each sequin was used as its own little jewelry piece and spaced between gemstone beads. It added a wonderful metallic touch to the design and really elevated it. 
Elegant Roses Charm chain is such a lovely chain that gives you so many options as to what to do with the roses. You can make them into charms or links and you can add just a few or a lot. Below is an example of how this chain transformed a crystal earring design and gave it a strong botanical garden feel. 
Hoop Circle Charm chain provides you with numerous little circle links which have no opening, they are completely round. This is ideal if you want to cut these from their center core chain to which they are attached, keep them intact, and use them as rings to do circular brick stitch around. You can then take these beaded rings and turn them into earrings, bracelets, and necklaces. Below is a video showing you how to do circular brick stitch around a link like these. 
p>Featured Video: How to Do Circular Brick Stitch Bead Weaving Around a Link or Form
Last but not least, remember all the charm chains that you can cut apart to get tons of little leaves, seashells, dangles, skulls, and other baubles. It's incredibly cost efficient considering how many you get per inch and is a nice way of getting lots of variety. 
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Comments

RML - June 15, 2023

Excellent demonstration and great visualization.

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