AVA's Rose Bracelet- DIY Jewelry Making Tutorial by PotomacBead

Hi everybody, I'm Allie Buckman with the Potomac Bead Company and I have the wonderful honor today of doing a video here called Ava's Rose and this is a design that was done by Cortez Thompson and featured in one of our ads in one of the beading magazine that she made this beautiful design with the Ava's and then we published it basically as part of our ad. And we've had a lot of requests to do the video and she was nice enough to give us permission to do the video for you of this Ava's Rose Bracelet. To do the Ava's Rose Bracelet you're going to need approximately 20 of the Ava beads. If you haven't worked with the Ava beads before, they are our exclusive Potomac Bead Company bead that has three holes to it. One along the point of the A and then one hole in each side or each little stem of the A as well. Flip it over and it looks like a V and then we go back to the A, hence the name Ava bead. In the design I'll be doing with you guys today I'm using the pastel Bordeaux color and I'm going to be using 18 of the Ava's for a little bit smaller of a bracelet. So 20 Ava's will get you the full length for a standard size wrist. In addition to our Ava beads, if you need any of these materials too, we'll put a little drop down menu on the left hand side here that you can do links to things like the Ava beads as well as the other materials that are listed off as I say them in the design. If you don't see the little list there to shop with me at PotomacBeads.com you can go below the video and there's usually a description of what the video is about or the video details. You can look at that or you can do the little down arrow to give you more information or show more depending on what device you're viewing on and that will give you links to all the different products as well. So again you're going to be using the Ava beads and approximately 18 to 20 of the Ava beads and I have this pastel Bordeaux color that I'm working with. In addition to the Ava beads there are some Potomac crystal rondelles right along the sides and it's the magic purple color in the 3 by 4 mm rondelles that we'll be using. You're going to need twice as many crystals as you have Ava beads so if you end up using all 20 of your Ava's you're going to need 40 crystals or in the case that we're working together I'm going to be using 36 crystals because I'm using less of the Ava beads. In addition to those, kind of optional but Hortez had them in her design so I'm keeping them, are two super duos, one at either end of the project. The super duos I have here are just Jet Picasso because I had them sitting around and that was an easy grab. You don't see a lot of them when you're working with it and you just need two. I should have mentioned if you do want to add an extra crystal to the end you will need one more crystal in a 3 mm or a 3 by 4 mm in this case so you can kind of change up the design if you want to do a crystal round or a crystal bicone, a 3 mm bead is what you're looking for, hence why I used the 3 by 4 because the 3 is going to go right there across and the design is for a 3 mm bead. The whole thing is held together with a cup button and I'll be using a crystal Labrador cup button here and the whole networking of it is done with, and the netting is done with 11 0C beads. For the design that we'll be doing together I've chosen 11 0C beads in the Miyuki crystal Labrador color which is a Miyuki brand seed bead that is coated in the Czech Republic in that nice bright silver which matches great with the crystal Labrador cup button since they have the exact same color finish on them. You will be using about 5 grams of those seed beads approximately. The whole thing is strung on some wildfire beading thread and I have .006 wildfire thread in the green color which I use 90% of the time because it matches a ton, a ton, a ton of different colors. So that's the thread that I chose to use for my Ava's Rose. You can also use wildfire if you prefer, that's what the actual written instructions call for, or fire line rather. In addition to that I have sitting next to me a thread zap or a thread burner to burn down the edges as well as to get the thread actually off the spool. I also have a needle nose pliers here so that when I do have the end of my thread I can kind of flatten it out here and make a nice flat end which is going to allow me to thread my needles much easier. Speaking of needles, we're going to use two size 10 needles, one needle on either side so it's a two needle project, you're using two of your size 10 needles. The Pony brand is the brand that I prefer. You may also want some super new glue handy and the super new glue you can use to glue your knots together. You also want a nice workable surface and I have a bead on it board that I normally work on or a bead mat here in the case of the videos that's going to make it easy for you to kind of pick up and make you a more efficient and a faster beader as well. So to get started on our design you're going to take your wildfire thread and you're going to get about 4 feet, 4 to 5 feet depending on the length of your project that you want to do, between 4 to 5 feet of the thread, burn that off and put a needle on each end of the thread. Go ahead and lay out your 11-0s and your Avas. The crystals will kind of pick up later and add and then have your two super duos ready to go as well. So to get started, get your supplies out and we'll get ready to make this beautiful Ava's Rose Bracelet. So to get started with the Ava's Rose design we have our needles on either end of the thread, one on the left hand thread and one on the right hand thread. You want to make sure when you thread your needles that the tails of them are about equal distance that way you don't have one thread that is a lot longer than the other. We are going to begin by putting the cup button onto the end of the bracelet and to do so we have one of my Potomac crystals that I'm going to add in the middle of the cup button. So I'm going to add to my needle one 11-0, one crystal and one 11-0 on the needle. It doesn't matter whether or not you're doing it on the right hand side or the left hand side you just want to put one on each. I'm then going to pick up the cup button and I'm going to put the cup button dome shape down, so I'm going through the bowl side of the cup button and coming up the outside of the cup button. If you have another button or you have a clasp with a wire guard those would go on now as well. Pulling the needles equally, your little crystal then should kind of sit inside of the cup button. If you don't want anything raised on the cup button, you can see it kind of sits above, you can simply use three seed beads on either, inside the cup button and that will put it kind of flush with the actual cup button. If you wanted to also you could grab another SuperDuo and throw that in there as well, they fit really well. From there, everything that I do with my right needle I'm pretty much going to do with my left needle. So on the right needle I want you to put on four 11-0 seed beads, you're going to do the same thing with the left and let those seed beads drop down right next to the clasp. The next step is kind of optional but since Hortense had it in her design I decided to use it in mine as well, kind of following with the pattern, you're going to put on your SuperDuo. The SuperDuo is going to go on so one needle is through one hole and one needle is through the other hole of the SuperDuo. Again let that fall back into the design. At this point then I'm going to put three of my 11-0s on the right and three on the left and let those drop down as well. At this point I get to add my first Ava bead, so the Ava beads are going to sit basically stacked inside of one another almost in a V. If you haven't worked with the Ava beads before they have a hole at the bottom and then two holes at the top, one exiting on each middle side. To start out we're going to be criss-crossing always through the bottom hole of the Ava bead, so our needle on the right hand side is going to go from the right to the left through that base hole of the Ava. The needle on the left then goes from the left to the right and again I'm going to want to pull my needles so that I know that they're equal distance apart from one another. That's going to push our first Ava bead in place. So the thread basically switches sides which one you're holding it on. We're going to add some seed beads on the sides of the Avas then and to do so about four 11-0s will sit on the side. So with the right needle go ahead and pick up your four 11-0s and you're going to go from the bottom hole of the Ava to the top hole of the Ava coming out the middle. If you feel more comfortable stringing with your right hand, simply flip your design and do the same thing again. So four 11-0s go on and go through the top hole of the Ava. So that first section there is pretty much going to be repetitive, you're going to constantly be putting four seed beads on the outside of the Ava going from the bottom hole to the top hole. From here what we're going to be doing actually is adding our next Ava bead. So with the threads exiting towards the middle, I'm going to separate those threads out again right to left and kind of push them to the sides and we're going to pick up our next Ava bead. Remember the threads cross through the Ava bead which we're also going to do but on either side of the Ava bead to make them sit correctly and space them out, we're going to put an 11-0 seed bead. So the pattern is going to be the 11-0, then an Ava bead, again through that base hole and then an 11-0. The needle on the right that I just used to pick those up is going to go through the top left hand hole of the Ava and out the other side. So the thread is going to now be on the left hand side. The needle that was on the left and is still in the middle of the Ava bead then will mimic what the right thread did and go from the left to the right. So it's going to go through the seed beads that we added and the Ava bead as well. Out the next seed bead and out the Ava. One thing because of the position of the hole of the Ava bead, you just want to make sure that you're not also going through any seed beads or that your thread is getting twisted around the Ava. And there you go. So the right thread goes to the left side, the left thread comes out at the right side. From there we're going to basically do the same thing of adding seed beads along the sides of the Ava, except this time instead of four, because we have to bridge the gap, we're going to use five seed beads. So we have five seed beads that are going to go on to our right needle and then through the top hole of the Ava bead on the right hand side. You can see that kind of bridges that gap and it puffs out just a tiny little bit. On the left hand side then, doing the same thing, five seed beads on and the thread is going to come out the center of the project. Give a tight pull and you have that fun little design. From here now it is competitive and repetitive, or repetitive rather than competitive, sorry. And what you're going to do is continue to add your Avas. So again, 11-0, Ava, 11-0, the thread on the right goes through the left hand hole of the Ava before, and then I'll stick that one in there. And then on the opposite side, take your needle and thread, and get it so your needle and thread are coming out the right hand side now, down through the seed beads and out through the Ava bead. Again, you want to make sure that you're not going through any of the seed beads, you're just going through the Ava beads. You want to give a nice tight pull there. The beads are going to sit and you're going to continue on adding your Avas in with that same continued design. So as you get to adding the end of your Ava beads, you're going to come to a point where you want to put on your loop to fit over your button and the superduos to get there if you want to do the superduo ending. So I ended up using about 18 of my Ava beads, and by the time I add the loop, that's going to fit me pretty well. In her pattern, Cortez calls for 20, which is what the pack comes in. If you do need to make it a little bit longer or a little bit shorter, you can also add some more beads at the ends, depending on kind of how many Ava beads you want to use. So I ended up using 18 in the design, and I have two left over from my pack of 20. When I'm coming out the last of the Ava beads, you can see kind of that puffiness that occurs as you're doing the arches kind of goes away and it becomes more of a streamlined straight line. Coming out the last Ava bead, I'm going to get ready to actually add the loop for my clasp. To do so, when I'm coming out the middle, I'm going to add on to my threaded needle 4 of my 11-0s on the right needle and 4 on the left needle. Let those drop down in next to your Ava beads. From there, pick up that second SuperDuo, take one needle through the right hole and one needle through the left hole of the SuperDuo. That's going to bring the design together and kind of end it so it looks similar to the beginning to the start. From here, we're going to create our loop for our button to go inside of. If you have the cup button that you're using and you just did seed beads and you don't have a crystal in there, 26 is going to be kind of your magic number of seed beads that you want to use to make a nice sized loop. Because I have those seed beads in there, I'm going to add just a few more than that so I'll add about 28-30 into my grouping. With my right needle, I'm going to pick up all of those seed beads. I'm just going to go right through, kind of picking up all those beads and placing them all on your needle. Once you have the loop too, it's always a good idea to check the sizing to make sure it's exactly the size that you want. You don't want your loop to be too big or too small that the cup button is not going to fit in at all or that it's going to fall out. So I have my loop there and what I'm going to do is take the thread and needle then that's coming out the right hand side and go down the left hand side of that super duo bead. Pulling the thread then, you can see that makes your loop for your button. Again always test that loop, make sure that it fits comfortably inside and that it's not too big. I'm actually going to take about 3 of my 11-0s off my thread and needle just to make it a tiny bit smaller. I'll take 3 of those off and then put the thread and needle back in, back down that left hand side. Now with the needle that's coming out the left, I'm going to reinforce that loop. So the needle that's coming out the left, I'm going to pick that up and go back through all of those seed beads that I just put on for my loop. So it's just going to retrace basically your step and reinforce that. If you want to, you can make it look a little bit fancier by doing a peyote stitch and adding in 13 or so more seed beads, going every other and then that needle will come down on the right hand side of that super duo. Once you have your loop made, kind of separate your needles out and you're going to want to give a nice tight pull so that any extra thread that you may have had on the needle is not showing at all. From here then we're going to go back down the bracelet and we're going to embellish the sides a little bit, creating small peaks and then those peaks are what we will catch onto to add in our crystals. So coming out the super duo, where we're going to want our thread and needle to come out of the project is right along the project at the actual kind of central point from where the five seed beads on the side sit. So I did it so you could see where it's coming out on the right hand side, I'm going to flip over and we're going to do the same thing with the other needle. So we're going to take our needle and thread, go back down the four beads along the side, I'm going to go through the Ava bead and then we're going to go through two of our seed beads. When we're out those two seed beads, pick up three more 11-0s, skip over that third seed bead and sew into the next two 11-0s in that group of five, as well as up two 11-0s in the next group of five, so you're going to end up stringing always through four beads. After stringing through four beads or sewing back through four, you're going to add three more seed beads, skip the center one, and sew back through four more beads to create that little peak on there. So again I'll flip over to the left hand side now, just to show you we're coming out after two beads, so we're going to skip, so there's that grouping of five, we've sewn through two, we're skipping the third bead, adding three seed beads right above, sewing down the last two in that group of five, and then also through the first two in the next grouping of five, and out. So all together you're sewing back through four beads after you go and add that grouping of three. So now again, three more beads get added, and coming down the side, skip over that third bead in that grouping of five, sew through the two, and that creates those little peaks. Continue then going through four beads at a time, so you do two from the previous set and two from the new set of five, add three, skip the third bead, and go through beads four and five, and then one and two of the next grouping. So you can see I'm doing a couple on each side to get those little peaks, and then I'll go back two and flip over, so I'm working with the opposite needle. So at this point here, again we're doing the same thing with our right needle as our left needle, going ahead and building in those little triangle peaks right along the edge of the bracelet. Come down the right side a couple stitches, and then flip over and go down the left side. I don't like to do one whole side at a time, I like to switch back and forth so your tension remains the same throughout the project, and it doesn't favor kind of bowing towards one side or the other. So now that I have a couple, I'm going to flip over to my dominant hand to my right, and continue adding a couple more peaks along the right hand side, again then switching back and forth the whole length of the project. So at this point now, the bracelet actually can be complete if you're done doing your little points, and Hortense says that it's optional to add some crystals on the side. So it looks very elegant when it's on the wrist if you just have the little peaks. I'm going to go ahead and add the crystals on the side like I had said previously, because I think they add to the design. So after you're coming off your last peak here, you're getting back to your first Ava where you have the four beads along the side. Your thread and needle here are going to go through those four beads along the Ava, up through the seed beads right after, through the SuperDuo, through the seed beads, and the cup button as well. This is going to allow you to get some extra pieces of thread through that cup button, which is going to reinforce it. Then with the needle coming down on the left hand side here, so basically I'm taking the thread and needle back through the entire thing, back through the four beads on the opposite side, and then up to the top of the peak that I created on the opposite side. Now I'm going to go over that again on the left hand side for you. So the thread's coming out, your last two seed beads, you're going to go up through those four beads along the side, up through the seed beads, the SuperDuo, and the seed beads leading up to the cup button, up through the cup button, through the crystal if you can, down the cup button, down the seed beads on the opposite side, down through the seed beads in that grouping of four, and then down through, or that grouping of three, down through the seed beads, those four seed beads that sit along the side of the Ava bead, and then basically up through four beads, the first two, and then the two coming out to the top of the peak. So here your thread and needles are coming out right at the top of the peak of the last little point there, that last little kind of picot point, right at the end of the Ava beads. From here then it's going to be time to get out your crystals, or your three millimeter beads of sort. You also have a little bit more room if you want to do something of a different size. And if you do want to do something of a different size, you're just going to have to see exactly what size fits in and your spacing to do so. So with mine here, I have the crystal, I'm going to do an 11-0, a crystal, an 11-0, and then simply take the thread from the one peak to the next peak. After that, grab another 11, crystal, 11, then to the next peak. You can see it's just going to kind of run right along there. 11, crystal, 11, through the seed bead, right along the peak. If you notice and you're not exactly sure what bead you want to add along the outer edge, do a couple rows, see how it is fitting. Since Hortense did a three millimeter bead and I'm doing a three by four millimeter rondelles, I'm doing a couple passes on each side, making sure that my spacing is sitting nicely and that it's not gathering or grouping or pulling in any direction. I'm going to go ahead and just again, coming down the opposite side, because again, whatever we do on one side, we do on the other with the other needle. If you happen to have a lot of thread on one side and you're almost out of thread on the other, you can actually stop at a point and work your way down the whole project through the clasp and back up the project on the other side. That's a little cheat if one side happens to be shorter than the other, or you're running out of thread, or if you need to add more thread, that's how you can do it. I'm going to continue going down the side then, both the right and the left with that pattern of 11, three millimeter, 11, right down along the side of the Ava beads. I'm at the end of the bracelet, cutting in the crystals, and I have my last crystal to add in place. I'm going to go ahead and add the last crystal and show you then how we're reinforcing the clasp and where I'm going to tie off the thread. I have my last crystal in through the 11-0 seed bead along the side. On the left-hand side here, I did the same thing, so it's coming out through the 11-0 seed bead on that last peak. With the needle on the right, go down through three beads, the one at the end of the peak and then the two beads before the Ava bead. Out through then that top right-hand hole of the Ava bead, and also through the four 11-0 seed beads as well as the SuperDuo. Again, if you want to, you can do a peyote stitch to make this clasp look a little bit fancier, or you can just go right through the loop and reinforce it. This will put three strands of thread through the loop, just like we did three strands of thread through the cup button. Originally, this had two strands going through when we made it, and now we're putting a third strand going through right now. The cup button, we had one strand going through when we made it and put two on as we got to that end. As I come out the left-hand side now of that loop, I want you to go down the SuperDuo as well as down the four seed beads near the Ava bead. With your thread and needle then, come out the Ava bead, go through the three seed beads along the edge here, and bring your needle out. That's going to bring your needle to the side of the project, right where the left thread ended. Taking those two threads then, I'm going to tie them together in a square knot, right over left, and then left over right. If you want to have your Super New Glue handy and glue, you can do that now as well, right after you're done your knot. What you're going to do then is pick up your thread burner, after we have about four knots in there, and pick up our burner, burn down the thread. When I burn down the thread, I generally am going to leave a tiny bit of an end here that you can see. That end then, I'm going to keep the thread separate, and burn down each thread so that it is flush against the project. This is going to create another blunt end on the thread, and two blunt ends basically from that knot that we created. What that's going to do is keep the knot from coming apart. When you do it that tight too, you don't see the extra little knot there at the end, and it's not right along the outside of the bracelet. At that point, your Ava's Rose Bracelet is completed and ready to wear. You have a nice kind of cuff style bracelet. I'll refocus here for you, so you can see the bracelet actually on the wrist, and what it looks like. You can see I have a little bit of wiggle room on my wrist with those 18 Ava beads. If you want to make it tighter, you can, or if you need it to be standard size, about 20 beads, and the Ava is what Hortense recommends for the design. It's been a lot of fun and a pleasure to have all these different artists that allow me to do their designs, and play around and come up with different designs for the beads that we produce. It's really great to see what people make, the skills that they have, the wonderful designs they come up with, and have an opportunity as another designer to make somebody else's design as really, really fun, and the videoing of it gives a whole other fun aspect to it as well. I really enjoy creating, and I really enjoy also making other people's designs too. It's nice to have to not think about the spacing, have it already figured out for you, and have somebody have a beautiful design ready to go. So I thank Hortense for letting me make this Ava Rose bracelet and to do it a video. We also have the instructions for you that she wrote that you can download and place in your cart when you place an order for the materials on the website as well. Again, if you like the videos, you can always subscribe to this YouTube channel to get regular updates on videos like this, as well as updates on new products like the Ava bead, the designs that go along with it, and really what's going on in the beading world as well. If you need any of the supplies for the bracelet, you can go back to the beginning of the video to the little drop down menu where we have links to all of the different items, or again if you don't have that up here, underneath the video in the description of the video in that little show more button, and I'll have links to all of these products as well if you have those little details as part of it. In addition to subscribing to this YouTube channel, you can purchase from us again, like I said, online. You can also visit PotomacBeads.com and just check out the huge supply of items that we carry and that we can get to you. You can also visit us on Facebook, check out our Twitter and our Instagram accounts, and then on Facebook also we started a group which is a closed forum, you ask for permission and we'll let you in, for beading and jewelry making, and that beading and jewelry making group is a great interaction for designers like Hortense and other wonderful people that love the art, love to create, love to wear, love to enjoy, and they give wonderful hints and tips and ideas and really a great interaction of people as well. As always everybody, thank you so much for watching this YouTube video, thank you so much to Hortense for allowing me to create this Ava Rose video, and everybody have fun creating. Thanks again!