How to Make Earrings Using Large Hole Beads

	Bead Aligner, Classic Style 6mm, White Bronze Plated, by TierraCast (8 Pieces) SKU: BMB-223 $2.85
	Bead Aligner, Classic Style 8mm, White Bronze Plated, by TierraCast (8 Pieces) SKU: BMB-224 $4.85
	Bead Aligner, Classic Style 7mm, White Bronze Plated, by TierraCast (4 Pieces) SKU: BMB-227 $2.45
	Sterling Silver Square Wire Earring Hooks (2 Pairs) SKU: FEA-4045 $12.85
	Xuron Jeweler's Super Fine Pliers Chain Nose Flat Nose SKU: XTL-5450 $25.99
	The Beadsmith Wire Looping Pliers - Concave And Round Nose SKU: XTL-5032 $14.99
	Sharp Flush Cutter Pliers - For Cutting Beading Wire (1 Piece) SKU: XTL-5600 $23.99
	Beadalon Beading Mats - Prevent Bead Rolling 12 x 9 Inch (Set of 3) SKU: XTL-9930 $3.99

Note: This audio transcript is auto-generated and may not be completely accurate.
Hi. This is Julie for Beadaholique.com In this video, I'm going to show you how to very easily make pandora style beaded earrings. Pandora is probably the most well-known manufacture of these around large hole beads but they're actually quite a few other suppliers out there making these beautiful beads. And as the style grows manufactures are also coming up with complementary components to help you incorporate these beads into other designs. Making a pair of earrings is a great way to use these large hole beads. Now if you were just to take a headpin and place and beat up onto the headpin and place a bead onto the headpin prior of stringing your large hole bead what is going to happen in most cases is the bead is going to fall right off. Now even if you were to take a spacer and I'm not going to use it as it is intended, I'm going to show you how to use it in one moment, let's say you take a spacer you put the bead on and then you want to proceed in beading the rest of the headpin what's gonna happen is your bead is going to be very loose and it's going to hang lopsided. There are a couple solutions to this problem. The easiest is a drop link. You'll see that that is what this is right here. It has a thick interior post and than a flared based which is gonna keep your bead in place. So I'm going to show you really quickly how you would do this. Quite simple. You can see that bead is not going anywhere and it also is not lopsided. It's being held pretty much in the center of the post. Now when you're picking out your drop links you want to keep a couple different things in mind. You're going to want to check the measurements of the inner diameter of the hole and that's important because you make sure it's going to fit onto the post and not slide off. These post come in varying thicknesses. That flared base is also going to vary on how large it is as well. So you'll want to check the measurement of both the post, the base, the interior diameter of your hole. The one I'm using here has a post which measures 3.9 millimeters so I know that my bead is going to have to have a whole which is at least four millimeters in diameter. So keep those things in mind before you make your purchases and just make sure all the measurements line up properly. Another thing to keep in mind when you're choosing your posts is how long of a post you want. You can see that on this small one here would nicely fit one bead. On the medium size one it's actually going fit two beads and on the large one will actually accommodate three beads. Now do again bear in mind you will need to check your measurements as the beads are going to vary in there width as well. So just double check that it's gonna fit before you make your purchase. But generally you're going to get one, two, and three beads depending if you want the small post, the medium or the large. So now I want to show you really quickly how to make a pair of earrings in a matter of seconds. I'm going to take a large hole bead, slide it onto my drop link happens to be sterling silver. Put that aside for just one moment. I have a sterling silver earring hook. I'm just going to bend that a curve slightly just so I can slide my drop on bend it back and just like that you have a very elegant pair of earrings. You can do this for a birthday. This happens to be a ruby colored one which is going to perfect for those born in the month of July. So you can do it according to your birthstone or just any pretty bead that you find attractive and you want to make into a quick and easy earring. So that's one way to do it. Another way to do it is if you want to go ahead and be able to combined other beads with your large hole bead you're going to want to use a headpin. Now you're gonna need the headpin you're also going to need something to stabilize that large hole bead. So I'm going to start to make my earring. I'm just using a bead cap here. A petite one. Got a pretty Swarovski crystal, I have another bead cap. Then I have something called a bead aligner and that is gonna be the key component in making this earring. You can see that not only does it have a pretty decorative edge, a flat surface on the other side but it actually has this partial post protruding upwards from it. Your large hole bead is actually going to sit onto that post and it's going to keep the bead from sliding around. So your going to go ahead put the bead aligner onto your headpin with the post facing upward. Place your bead on. Do another bead aligner on the other side and this time that post is going to be facing down. So you're basically sandwiching the large hole bead between it. You're going to finish off the rest of your earring how ever you want. And then all you need to do for this particular earring at least is create a wrapped wire loop at the top. I've got a pair of looping pliers right here. They have a round and a concave side. I'm going to place that up pretty tight to my beads. I'm going to go ahead compress move my looping pliers and just wrap my wire. Take a pair of flush cutters make a little snip. Take my flat nose pliers press that tail in so it looks very finished. Now what I need to do is open up the loop at the base of my earring back the same way you would open a jump ring. Slide it on and close that loop back up. There you have a pretty pair of earrings using a large hole bead. So now I want to show you one final technique before we sign off on how to use a large hole bead to make a pair of earrings and this one is so super simple. I have an eight millimeter bicone I'm going to put that right onto a headpin. I have a large hole bead I'm going to put that right over bicone and then another bicone and what's happening is because of the shape of the bicone itself. It has a nice point it's actually securing the large hole bead in place. And that's not moving. It's actually very nice and stable. So all I have to do is create a loop up at the top and hang it on an earring hook and I would have a complete earring. So these are just a few ideas and simple techniques to get you started using large hole beads to make earrings. Go to Beadaholique.com for all of your beading supply needs!