How to Size and Care for a Stainless Steel Chain Necklace for Men and Women

SKU VID-1689
Designer: Kat Silvia
In this video you will learn the standard sizes for necklaces for men and women as well as how to construct a necklace using jump rings and a lobster clasp. Stainless steel chain is a great option for everyday wear. It is easy to clean and does not tarnish with the proper care. Simply clean with water and mild dish soap and a soft cloth. Store you stainless steel away from your other jewelry. Best kept in a small pouch or zip lock bag. Stainless can scratch and if it does we recommend a professional polish to restore its shine.
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Audio Transcript
Note: This audio transcript is auto-generated and may not be completely accurate.
hi this is kat with beadaholique.com i table here I brought out some of the chain here that I'm going to be working with and we do have several different styles of lobster clasps and jump rings to work with the exact chain that you're looking for and I did bring out some other finished chains just so you can get a little style idea here so I have some of the chains here so you can see the different links we have two varieties so I have this nice thin one here and then I have a little bit of a thicker one but it's a little flatter but again you can just sort of see the variance in size there so we're going to talk about that and then I also have brought out some of our other chains here and now these are all stainless steel but again you can see the variety if you want something that's a little thinner a little more sleek or if you want something that's a little more heavy-duty just depends on your style so depending on the size chain that you're going to work with that will determine the jump ring size so for today I'm going to be working with this chain here and I'm going to be using jump rings that are five millimeter 19 gauge so it's gonna be nice and thick to support this chain and then I also have my little lobster clasp here and that's about 12 millimeters alright so this is what I'm gonna be making here today and the only tools that you need are a couple pairs of chain nose pliers so I have my chain nose pliers and my bent chain nose pliers so the only other tool that we're gonna be using here today is our ruler so let's go ahead and dive in I want to start talking about some of the sizing all right now if you're making a necklace for a man we recommend that you start at 18 inches at the very least that's usually gonna sit probably just above their collarbone for most men so what you're gonna want to do is to see where they want it to sit but I recommend doing at least 20 that's gonna sit just below there so you're still going to be able to see it let's say if a man is wearing a crew neck t-shirt if you want it to be longer or hidden or sometimes you'll put a pen at the bottom we recommend going up to 22 or 24 again it just depends on the physical type of the man as well but those are some general sizes for a woman you're probably gonna want to start closer to 16 that's gonna sit closer to the collarbone for a woman generally and then you can go to 18 20 and then 22 starts to get longer that'll probably land a little bit around the breastbone okay so we're gonna make a men's necklace today so I'm gonna do 20 inches so let's go ahead and measure it out now I'm starting over here at this end you see that I have a larger link here so this chain has large links and small links so what I'm gonna try to do is match that up so I'm going to start here and let's get to let's just make it nice and even on myself so let's get to ten inches here all right so to that link all right I'm gonna run this through here all right and to ten inches there and I'm actually gonna extend to ten and a quarter on this one because I want to end at that large link here so you can see that it'll be nice and even when I bring it together all right now because this is stainless steel one of the things is that it's gonna be hard to cut so this chain in particular let's say and it's on this side these are like little jump rings so these are actually open links so what you're going to want to do just to make it nice and easy on yourself is go ahead and take your chain nose pliers on both sides of that last little link there and we're just gonna open it up just like a little jump ring and now I can slip off the portion of the chain that I want and I can set that aside so now I have my two ends that have those large links at the very back so it'll be nice and symmetrical all right so now I'm just gonna take my jump rings here attached one jump ring to one of the long links there come in with my lobster clasp and close that up now typically you put your lobster clasp on the right side now for this one it'll kind of you can move it around as you want but you reason you we put it on the right side is because most people tend to be right-handed so it's easier to deal with the clasp and leaving it open to try to clasp it behind your neck but if you know someone who's left-handed do them the courtesy maybe put it on the other side all right so now we have our finished necklace so that's super duper easy just a couple of jump rings and you can open the links of the chain just like jump rings so let's dive in and talk a little bit about how to care for your jewelry here so stainless steel is a really wonderful durable material if it does scratch you will probably need to have it professionally polished it's just one of those materials that it's you know it really resist scratching but it can happen and if it does just get it professionally polished you can take it to any jeweler and they'll do that right right nicely for you alright so the other thing the other great thing about stainless steel is that you can actually wear it in the shower you can wear it can get wet it's actually very tarnish resistant which is wonderful but to clean your jewelry what we recommend is taking a little bit of mild dish soap in a dish with water and just sort of dipping your jewelry in there and then what you're going to do is you're going to want to buff it and polish it to it clean with a soft dry cloth after you've rinsed it off so you can just use a little bit of soap and a little bit of water and just rinse this off and just buff it to a beautiful shine with just like I said just a very soft cloth you don't want to use paper towels or anything that's gonna be too harsh we usually like a microfiber cloth will work really really well but you can wear these in the shower and the pool especially if you do wear it in the pool please be careful of salt water and chlorine sometimes it can damage or just at least at the very least dull the shine so you just want to be very careful of that but stainless steel is a wonderful durable material I know people who wear the necklaces all the time and they still have that beautiful silver shine so all of these supplies you can get by heading over to beadaholique.com and you can learn even more about all of our chain varieties over there as well I hope you enjoyed this video be sure to hit that subscribe button below if you're brand new to our YouTube channel

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