Beaded Friendship Bracelets: A Beginner's How-To Guide with Over 100 Designs

Jewelry Making Supplies

Before you begin, make sure you have the correct supplies. You will need to make sure you have the proper beads, latches, stringing materials, and more, depending on which type of bracelet you plan on creating. It doesn’t hurt to plan ahead in jewelry making–you will be grateful for it later.

An assortment of jewelry supplies is needed to complete your clay bead bracelets. Jewelry tools, cords, threads, beads, and jewelry finding all can be used for our designs.

Beads and Accessories

Perhaps the most fun part of jewelry making is picking which beads and accessories you will be crafting with. Are you making something for your friend who loves all things turtles? Are you creating a bracelet for yourself, and your favorite color is blue? Once you have a general idea of what you want the bracelet to look like, it’s time to think deeper about the specific beads, charms, and other accessories that you will be working with.

A set of pre-mixed clay bead colors is a great way to start your jewelry work. This set contains 24 individual muted-toned clay bead colors, gold and silver jump rings, and gold and silver 6mm spacer beads.

Beads

We are using clay beads as the basic bead for the bracelet designs. There are so many bright and beautiful glass, bone, gemstone, and acrylic beads available to the hobby jeweler that we will be using a wide variety of these as accent beads.

Beads are noted through the instructions in this book by size, material, shape, color, hole size, and use. As an example, you may need a bead that is 6mm in diameter, dark brown, made of bronze metal, tube shaped, with a large-hole opening. That bead will be listed as 1 – 6mm, dark bronze, large-hole tube bead.

This second color mix holds the bright, vivid color tones of the rainbow. The set also includes shades of white, gray, brown, and black to use as accent colors.

If you need large quantities of clay beads, they are also available in pre-strung 16-in. strands. You can purchase both color mixes as well as individual colors.

Types of Beads

Design Principles

Filler Beads

Accent Beads

Focal Beads

Just like the clay beads we are using, many different beads can be purchased in color mixes.

Color mixes are usually all one size of bead–only the color changes. The set shown here is a twenty-four-color collection of 8mm frosted glass pearls.

Bead Dangles, Chains, and Pre-Made Tassels

It is so fun to add a little surprise to your bracelet design like charms, tassels, and bead dangles. A great source of bead dangles is vintage or broken jewelry necklaces. You can repurpose several accent pieces from old jewelry for your clay bead bracelets. Chains, linked beads, focus bead dangles, tassels, and more can be recycled for a cool, classic feel.

From one old necklace you can glean a clasp, jump rings, chain sections, and beads that are already wired to add directly to your work.

Bead Caps

Bead caps are metal findings that are used on either side of your accent bead. They are sized by their width. Usually, your bead dangle is one size smaller than your accent bead. Purchase 6mm bead caps to fit 8mm glass beads. The caps add a little metal sparkle that can make one accent bead visually more powerful than another.

Spacer Beads

Spacer beads can be found in all the general beadmaking materials, from glass, gemstone, and metal. These are narrow beads, often oval or cone shaped, that go between larger beads or groups of similar beads to visually break the design. In the project instructions you will see spacer beads used to separate one grouping of clay bead colors from the next.

In our designs we will use spacer beads to hide the knot for elastic cord bracelet work.

Barrel/Tube Beads, Tibetan Silver Beads

Large-hole beads come under several names—tube beads, barrel beads, and Tibetan silver beads. All have one common property, and this is that the size of the hole is 3mm or larger. These beads work wonderfully with our string materials as well as leather lacing, shoelaces, thin macrame cord, and paracord.

Bail Beads

Bail beads are large-hole beads that also feature an added eye ring that you can use to attach lobster clasp bead dangles, charms, and tassels.

Tube beads and bail beads come in a wonderful array of designs, metals, and textures.

Like so many jewelry supplies, bead caps can be purchased in assorted shapes. Smaller-sized caps—8mm or smaller— often come in various sizes within one mix. Extra fancy bead caps may go under the name of Tibetan silver bead caps.

SAVING MONEY

These options add affordability, versatility, and enhance the beauty of your creations.

Want to use those special focal beads for your bracelet project?

Cut cost by incorporating a variety of lower-cost items to accent those special beads. Use seed beads, silver spacers (tube, daisy, round, oval, or square), silver beads, E beads, bead caps, and so much more to fill in the space while keeping the cost down and showing off those special interest beads.

Seed Bead Spacers

Bead Caps and Beads