Kits

Our carefully crafted jewellery making kits have been devised with real student input to get you proudly proclaiming "I made that!" in no time.

What Equipment Do You Need To Start Making Jewellery?

To answer this we have to first appreciate that jewellery making covers a wide spectrum and many people choose to specialize in particular areas to really gain depth of experience and hone their skills. Traditional jewellery making focuses on threading beads and combining colours and shapes, beading is a more intricate form of jewellery making that involves learning particular stitches such as peyote, herringbone and brick stitch and then following a particular pattern to arrive at a design.

Working with wire is yet another segment of the craft where the hands are the most important tool and hours are spent perfecting wrapping and twisting different gauges of wire to encase and showcase stones for example and then we have the growth of braided jewellery aided by Japanese kumihimo, macrame and Chinese knotting popularity. Metal stamping is a skill set all to its own and whilst the above are not mutually exclusive, and by no means exhaustive, you will appreciate that the materials you will need will vary depending on which type of jewellery making you are engaged in.

The most popular items that are used in traditional adult jewellery making are as follows;

• Craft Pliers ~ namely round nose pliers, for making loops, chain nose pliers, for holding items firmly such as clamping crimps, and cutters, for cutting wire. These are the staple tools most require to begin their jewellery making journey and are often followed by crimping pliers which make the process of crimping easier and memory wire cutters which are stronger that traditional cutters and can cut much thicker wire.
• Thread or Stringing Materials are a variant of findings in that they are a base component that allows you to construct jewellery. Coated wire, commonly known as tiger tail is very popular as it's thin enough for most bead holes and great for threading without needles. Tiger tail can, however, be stiff so if you are designing with delicate beads such as fresh water pearls these are typically strung using fine thread so that they hang naturally. You will find many different types of stringing including chain, elastic and even hollow rubber tube ; all presenting numerous design opportunities.
• Findings allow you to combine elements together and include items such as jump rings, end beads and clasps. They are available in a range of colours so you can experiment and in some cases help a design to really stand out so deserve equal attention to beads when being selected.
• Beads are the centre piece of most designs in traditional jewellery making and their huge variety allows endless possibilities.
• Bead Boards provide measurements around their edges that assist in planning the length and size of designs whilst Bead Mats have a flocked fabric that prevents your materials from rolling away.
• Safety Goggles are recommended simply due to the fact that wire, when cut can jettison off in all directions so is a sensible safety precaution.
• Bead Storage Boxes are also essential as you may soon find that the jars you've been using are over flowing and you'll appreciate having a more systematic way of keeping track of your materials as your passion and experience grow in tandem.

We hope you've found this useful and all of our kits, for adults or children, come with detailed, illustrated  instructions so you're guided every step of the way. Feel free to also review our jewellery making frequently asked questions for more tips and ideas.