Create A Beaded Flower Sun Catcher with Shelly Penney

hi everyone shelly penny here with twisted fish artisan jewelry thank you so much for tuning in i hope you're having an amazing day it is coming out of spring here and i am so excited to see the end of winter and to be able to get out and dig in the dirt again anyway i i have spring on the mind these days and so today i'm going to show you how to make a beautiful spring flower sun catcher with jesse james beads bead mix in parisian blue i absolutely love this bead mixes it's really stunning and it makes a beautiful blue flower so the first time i posted one of my flower sun catchers i was overwhelmed with requests for tutorials on this uh on the technique it's a very simple beginner project that you can learn with just a few simple tools and here's what it looks like so the bead mixes from jessie james beads and that little b button which is so darn cute is from dress it up buttons which is jesse james beads sister company if you didn't know so let's get started you're going to need a few simple tools and any beginner can learn this technique i'm starting with the beads that i'm going to be using in the project i'm going to be using jesse james beats color trends bead mix in parisian blue this is a beautiful mix look at this caged crystals some large hole uh clay beads or ceramic beads some metal i love these beautiful faceted uh round beads whole lot of beady deliciousness showing up in this mix the next thing i'm going to use is some wire i'm using 12 gauge aluminum i'm using 12 gauge because you can get quite a few beads on your mic on your flower and it can be fairly heavy then we're going to use some 26 gauge silver wire to do the wire wrapping with all right so let's get started um i'm i'm working right off the spool here i've pulled out about a double wingspan so from the tip of one hand to the tip of the other approximately i don't know it's probably about six feet of wire probably won't need that much but it's nice to have if we do so i'm going to start with about let's say about eight and eight inches down and then i'm going to hold this with my pliers here and i'm just going to bend this down this is going to be one part of the stem when we're done all right so i'm going to start making the petals so i just give that a nice little curve don't worry if it's perfect put a little bend here and that's going to be one of the petals all right now in order to get that nice point at the end once i've got the petal made i just come in here with my pliers easier said than done give it a little pinch right here and then give it a little stretch out there we go we've got a nice shaped now i'm going to take my bail making pliers i'm going to just put it right in here and around like that so this actually is probably a little bit too far down i'm trying to get them even here so they'll meet properly in the middle when they when we're ready to do that all right so i am going to do one more to show you on camera and then i'm going to go off of camera to form the rest of the petals all right so i've got that basic shape i'm going to pinch that end in there a little bit and then i'm going to stretch it back out and we have another petal i usually do for these large flowers i usually do 10 petals all right so i'm going to continue doing that and pick up when i've got the petals okay so we've got to the end i've made 10 petals here and now i'm going to start to form the flower itself and create the stem so when i get to the last petal here i'm just going to bend that down like that and that's going to be one side of the stem and then i have the other side of the stem here don't worry about here if they're not lining up just yet we'll we'll work at that but i might start to just form it a little bit so here's what i do i just sort of pinch them together a little bit there's going to be some overlap until we actually do the wire wrapping but just to get that basic shape with a fairly uniform center all right so i'm still working on the roll as you can see i'm going to cut my wire down here so that i have some room to work now that i know i'm not going to need any more wires so here's how i'm going to form the stem i'm going to hold this like this i'm going to pinch this between my fingers and i'm going to cross these over and then i'm going to start to twist now the thing about twisting wire is that you have to be careful that you're not just wrapping one wire around the other because that's the way it sort of wants to go right so i usually take them them out separately like that hold my thumb and finger right up close here and then twist it and that way i know that they're both they're both twisting all right so we'll get down to where on the stem i want to make the leaf all right so we can make the first leaf here now i'm going to take this and fold it up like that something real simple take my pliers and i want the stem to come in behind so we can finish the wrap there all right just it's just as easy as that i might take my pliers and shape the point here a little bit the same way we did the feather the feather the same way we did the petals and then i'm going to continue the twist if i want another leaf i'll wait till i've got the long end of the stem on this side and i'll do the same thing i'll sort of bend it up like that it's going to go in behind so get my and i'm a very good example that you don't have to be terribly coordinated in order to make something beautiful because i'm not i am some mornings i am all thumbs and that would be today so there we've got two nice leaves shaped now let me show you how i finish it off so i don't want people to poke themselves with something sharp at the end right so i'm going to cut this one flush and then this one i'm just going to wrap it around into a little circle so that's not poking out there at all and then i'm going to cut this all right just run your finger over it to make sure this is aluminum wire so the properties of aluminum are that is very soft and they don't work harden so no ma i don't need to hammer this because hammering aluminum is not going to make it uh any stiffer the way other wires do like copper wire right so just to make sure that's not too sharp anyway but i can just sort of pinch down that end and because it's aluminum it will pinch down that's perfect there so we've got the basic shape of our flower nail come back into the screen here so now i want to fiddle with this a little bit until i have uh the shape in the center we want it to be round so you sort of push it down you're going to be pushing these petals together somewhat sort of reducing the space in between the petals just sort of molding it a little bit until you have it the shape that you wanted all right so we're gonna all right once we get this all wrapped together we're gonna have a big space in the center that we're gonna be able to put a bead of some description all right so before i do that let's start to wire wrap a little bit i'm going to take my 26 gauge wire cut some off i'm going to anchor it down here somewhere by wrapping it around two or three times all right so i'm going to hold that there and when you're wire wrapping something like this take your wire like that and don't take this end if you can help it and put it through you might do that you might do that at the end of the piece but for now i have lots of room so i'm going to poke it in that way and this way you're going to pull it straight out and it's not going to get kinked all right that's my little tip for not getting your wire kinked all right so we're going to come up this way and we're going to put a couple beads into this petal the first thing i want to do is just finalize the shape of this petal before i put before i put any bead in it all right so i'm just going to you can see how soft that wire is too right so all right all right i like the shape of that petal so now i get to decide what kind of beads do i want to put now you know when i'm doing a piece like this i really do it random i just put my beads out and then i decide as i go as i'm making what i want to do what i want to put where so i try and keep like um i try and keep balance in mind there's some oh there's some pretty silver spacers in there too uh anyway i try and keep balance in mind so by by that i mean i might have similar shapes and sizes on this side as i have on this side or a similar bead a similar color something that'll bring this side and this side sort of together so it looks like one cohesive piece [Music] so let us let us start with this pretty bead just and just sort of put it in there they're sort of going to be floating all right so what you're always thinking about when you put a bead into a frame like this is to get the wire to the other side and anchor that bead in the prettiest way possible something that draws interest i like to form these little loops with my wire so let me see if i can show you on camera how i do that let's turn it around the other thing i wanted to mention is that if you come in underneath the wire you've got to go out over top all right so i'm just going to take this and i'm just going to make a pretty little attractive loop here at the end and like i said you don't have to be particularly coordinated to do this and then i'm going to turn it over and wrap this around now you notice i'm holding up the loop that i just made because i don't want to pull it out all right take your time when you're doing this so that you don't kink your wire right and there i have my first bead placed all right now what else do i have here i'm just going to randomly pick up beads and start filling in those petals all right yeah see i didn't take my time there and i almost have a kink so i'm going to very carefully take that kink out and use my just use my fingers my fingernails just sort of straighten that out as best as i can do it all right let's take one of these little oh look at the glitter on that one so beautiful take one of those pop it up in there now i'm going to show you a little trick here you see i'm at the top i have all this wire here that i need to get back down here so i can continue to the next one so here's what i'm going to do i'm going to go back here i'm doing what i told you i not to do but i don't have enough space in here to get the wire through by putting it in the other way so i'm going to put it in front words but i'm going to be very careful when i get down to this part there's always a tendency for it a to either want to kink or b to want to not get not wrap properly around the wire so once i've got it to here i'm just going to push that down and hold it in place while i pull the other ones through all right so i want to get down here to put another little something either a curlicue or something so how do i do that well i'm going to go pass back through this bead and i pass through the beads quite a lot if i i'm not doing it for for security or anything i'm simply doing it because i want to get i want to get the wire back down here and still have it look nice and neat so you'll notice i've got the wire wrapped around here why do i do that i don't want it to kink so it has to go down through here and it's coming out this way there's always a tendency to want to kink down there so i tend to somehow hold that so it can get through that hole without kinking you see what i mean there we go all right so i'm back down through here i'm just going to follow the path i've already made to get back down here now i have a space here that i want to do something with right so you can do any kind of a pattern i tend to like loops but what if we did something different what if we just made some sort of a pretty little design with the wire so let's do this i'm holding it where i want it to wrap around and i'm going to take my wire through here i'm going to show you what i'm going to do here okay it's good and anchored there wrap it twice make sure it's good and snug and then i'm going to just make another little so i'm going to make another loop right here all right now i'm going to hold anchor the wire where i want it to i want it to wrap and then i'm just going to make my way down to this point up here so i can cross into the next petal so all right so i've made my way down here my wire is right here so the next thing i want to do is wire the bottom of that petal together with a couple of wraps there and we're done the first petal so i'm going to come wrap around here a couple of times just so like i said to get from point a to point b in the neatest and prettiest way possible all right so now we're here we can do the next petal now as i'm going i'm going to just be mindful of what my finished piece is going to be like right because in the end these are all going to be wired together so we're good i think what i want to do with this one is just narrow it a little bit right there all right okay so i'm just going to wrap the wire around here once just to give me a good anchoring point for my next bead sometimes i go underneath and back up through too just to again just this particular one i think i want it coming up this center like that all right so now what are we going to do here we've got lots of choices here i think i'm going to come up like this and let's put so we want something to go opposite here what if we did this no i haven't used one of these crystals in my flower this is a nice big focal it's not going to work with that loop so i'm going to take that out let's try this i think this will work quite nicely now the tendency for these beads is to want to spin around like that it's all right if you like that if you if you want to minimize the spinning i have this loop here so i'm going to push that down a little bit so that the loop lays on the back side of that bead and then at the top i'm going to hold that and i'm going to make another loop around like this to hold that i can even make another loop just to be fancy up up here there we go so now you can see that that bead is just sort of steadied if you will so that doesn't spin i just take my thumbnails and just sort of make that loop at the back look a little bit neater and then i'm going to anchor that where it naturally wants to go is right here so that's where it's going to go i will anchor this right here so again i'm going to i'm going to hold it with my thumb where i want it to wrap around the frame and then i'm going to wrap around poke that up underneath and do it again okay so up here i could put one of those little beads i think i'm going to put these beautiful blue ones right up here and now some of it sometimes i put two beads sometimes i put three totally your choice okay all right that petal is done i like the way that looks so i'm going to wrap around here and again to get down here to begin the next flower as neatly and as pretty as i can alright i'm again going to tie these together before i start so the first thing i'm going to do is come in here and shape them as you can see i'm making decisions as i go this is my design process i just sort of design on the fly look at what's coming up how i want it to sit i like that i might even um do another loop up here okay so as you can see i'm getting near the end of the wire here so i'm going to just give that a couple of wraps around and cut it off and then get a new piece of wire sometimes i like to finish the wire up you know down here so i can start fresh but it doesn't matter one way or the other as long as you get where you're going tucking the sharp bits in i also go around afterwards and just make sure all of the sharp bits are in but as i go i don't want to poke myself while i'm designing so i'm just gonna get another piece of wire now i'm just cutting off uh you know a couple feet whatever you're most comfortable working with usually two two and a half feet is what i like to work with i find that comfortable now i have something that i want to do up here with one of these little drops let me show you i'm going to take this and i'm going to wrap it around these little these little um these little drops here our top drilled so what that means is that the hole goes through through the top across here this way i think you can actually see the there you can actually see it there so here's what i'm going to do i'm going to suspend that this is going to give us a little bit of a little bit of sparkling movement in the piece so we're just going to drop that right down and i'm just going to let it sit right there that is going to be real pretty and then i'm going to continue my wrap always supporting the wire here supporting the bead in the exact place i want it to stay because when you're pulling on wire wrapping things can move so i always am holding that right exactly now i don't want to take away too much when it's it's hard to show you here but when it's hanging in your window or standing upright it's going to sort of hang flat like that so the next piece i'm going to do here i want to decide what i want to fill in this gap with that isn't going to take away too much from my from this beautiful drop so i'm going to try just i think i'll just put a little one of these little gray beads here and before i do that though you can see how that's going to go i think i'm going to put a just a little decorative loop here right underneath there sort of like that now put the bead on now i don't want it to go all the way up around like that so we're just going to put it right here and then hold it in place while i wrap and you can always move that little loop a little bit just to just to get it where you want it one of the things about uh working with wire is that um lots of times the wire shows uh the kinks is and the aluminum wire is quite forgiving because as i said it doesn't work harden you'll still see kinks and in this project it doesn't really matter if it the pedals don't have to be perfectly smooth you're just sort of going for the overall effect but this when you're working with the smaller wires especially a smaller frame you have to be careful how you're holding it so i've just sort of developed this technique where i hold it between the tips of my fingers like that you'll always see me holding one of the other one way or the other when i first started i wasn't really sure how to hold it i had a lot of wire kink marks and tool marks on my pieces you just sort of learn the way that works best for you over time all right so i'm back down here now the next thing i'm going to do is move on to the next petal it's coming along quite nicely don't you think okay i'm going to once again i'm going to wrap these bottom of this petal together and then i want to come up by the center i'm just going to give this a little bit more shape i don't like how this is sticking out it's sort of going to take up too much lateral space this way which will affect the center and the end so i want to get the petals sort of close together before i start wrapping because if i start wrapping um and then decide to manipulate the petals it can sort of pinch up my wire in in between all right all right let's put a crackle ball in here oh i haven't used one of these yet look beautiful i love that so how am i going to anchor to the side let's put a little decorative loop there support that wire and wrap all right so i want to there see how i did that now here's one of those times where i can't put the wiring backwards to wrap so i'm just gonna have to be very careful about the kink i'll leave my finger in the loop so it pulls down and then when it gets to be about here i literally push that wire over the top with my thumb telling it where i want it to go and then back up all right so i have a space down here that i need to fill here's another design element i sometimes will add work my way down here so that the wire is coming out just about opposite this one let's go one more wrap around here so now you can see these two pieces here are almost even so what if i did this what if i took a loop made a loop here and then down through this bead here coming up the bottom support that loop all right get it where i want and that looks pretty good right there all right starting to take shape quite nicely i'm going to use another one of these uh gray beads sorry the blue ones i love those blue beets are really pretty the whole bead mix is really pretty honestly blue you know blue tends to be a favorite of a lot of people um i find that when i make blue anything almost it sells faster than variations of other colors typically i can make twice as many blue things as other colors with selling in mind let's just say now i haven't used one of these yet i'm still trying to decide i haven't really decided how i want to anchor it there let me just let me just try something what if so i sort of pressed it flat let me show you the back side so i've just pressed it like that for now you know what i think that's going to hold it just fine actually just like that i think that's going to do it because the finished piece is going to be sort of upright like that so i think that's going to hold it in place just the way i want it so i'm going to come around here you can see i'm getting really low really low here with this little bit of wire but i want to put something of interest right at the top here so i'm so when i when i get to be here and i don't really have enough wire to make a loop i will just sort of use my pliers to sort of bring that around make sure i got the pointy bit tucked there and then i'll just put a little purposeful kink in the wire just by grabbing it and turning it like that and then i gotta go back and make sure that this flower has enough wire so that it's going to face the direction i want it to face in i still want to fill that space in so i'm going to get another length of 26 gauge wire a couple three feet worth the length that i feel comfortable using and let's carry on so we've got five leaves almost finished so we're almost halfway finished our pretty little flower here which is pretty cool you can see how nicely it's coming together so now with the end design in mind i can start to shape these a little bit better so we can see how it's going to come together i think this is going to be very beautiful of course it's actually see why i said at the very beginning not to worry about the center too much as you work and start tying them together it all sort of works its way out it looks like i'm going to have quite a large center hole here and that's all right sort of try and push it down together without without ruining my inside frame wire wraps there right coming together quite nicely as you can see i'm going to carry on all right now to finish it off we need something for the centers i'm going to get a little bit of wire here now from my stash i just happen to have this great big crystal that i'm going to use in the center so super easy the first thing i'm going to do is i'm going to anchor the wire i often decide the center at the end because i'm never quite sure how big the center is going to be when the flower is done it just depends on how i've done shaping it so sometimes i need a a nice big center like i'm using today and sometimes i don't so i'm going to just anchor the wire like that i'll tuck these all these little bits afterwards and we're going to thread my center on and then i'll anchor it on the other side all right i'm going to go back down through the center just to uh just to reinforce that center bead and stabilize it a little bit so i anchored it over here and you can see i'm just going to put down through the top of that bead it's quite a large hole in that bead so that makes life easy hold it here pull it through the other side there we go and i'm going to take it back down here tie it off here and now i have a super fun little surprise to finish off this piece so i'm just going to anchor this a couple of times and then i'm going to show you i just happen to have the cutest little b buttons now these buttons as you can see have a little shank on the back this is a button from dressed up buttons which is jesse james beads sister company so you go to dress it up buttons look up dressed up buttons online i'll put a link below the video and you can get they've got really cute little bees and butterflies and they've got embellishments and flowers and disney licensed disney characters so here's what i did i just put the wire on the back there i'm going to decide where is the best place for that to nestle in and i think probably just like that will be how i want it to go so i'm just going to use my wire to anchor that and go around the back and see if there's a way i can get back down through that shank the way i've got it there just and i think i can okay you can see i didn't use a lot of tools for this even during the making of it i don't use my pliers very much all right so we are finished i hope you enjoyed today's tutorial if you do enjoy it make sure you let jessie james feeds know by commenting below

Channel: Jesse James Beads

Views: 7,805

Keywords: Jesse James Beads, JJB, Sun Catcher, Suncatcher, Shelley Penney, wire-wrapping, wire-wrapped, bead, beads, beaded, beaded jewelry, beaded tutorial, bead tutorial, bead how to, beading, wire-wrapped sun catcher

Id: zl-xarI9e7g

Length: 46min 4sec (2764 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 28 2022