Turquoise jewelry: an easy beading project to cherish

I’m sure you’ll like this necklace very much.

The big chunky turquoise nuggets stand-out beautifully placed amidst citrine beads and amber pebbles. A few silver beads give the final “ethnic” touch to the necklace.

The colors are balanced, achieving a complimentary color scheme between the blue-green from the turquoise and the red-orange from the citrine and amber beads. Read about complimentary color schemes here.

Materials:

• Turquoise nuggets (1 strand of small nuggets and a 1 large nugget as a centerpiece)
• 1 strand of Amber pebbles
• 1 strand of Citrine beads
• 6 Sterling silver (Bali) beads
• Yellow and brown seed beads
• 50” Nymo thread
• 1 Sterling silver hook and eye clasp

Arranging the beads

Put them in order on your workbench making the shape of the necklace, so that you can see a “preview” of how the complete necklace will look.

Beading the two ends of the necklace

Cut off two 25” lengths of nymo. Start beading the ends of the necklace alternating between amber pebbles and citrine beads like this:

1 amber pebble, 5 seed beads (2 brown at the ends and 3 yellows in the center), 3 citrine beads (I decided to make one of the ends longer adding another citrine bead, so that the necklace wouldn’t look so symmetrical), 5 seed beads, 1 amber pebble.

The tip of the ends is held between the nymo thread and a final seed bead. Thread the seed bead and thread the nymo back through the amber pebble, not the seed bead. By doing that, the seed bead is acting as a “stopper”.

Keep threading the nymo through several of the citrine beads and tie a surgeon´s knot to finish each end.

You should now have the two ends of the necklace ready.

Adding the centerpiece

Keep threading the beads to form the rest of the necklace as shown from the picture. To make each strand, the threading goes as follows:

5 seed beads, 1 sterling silver bead, 1 amber pebble, 1 sterling silver bead, 1 turquoise nugget. 5 seed beads, 1 amber pebble, 3 seed beads, 3 citrine beads, 3 seed beads, 1 amber pebble. 3 seed beads, 1 turquoise nugget, 1 sterling silver bead, 1 turquoise nugget, 5 seed beads. 1 amber pebble, 3 seed beads, 3 citrine beads, 3 seed beads, 1 amber pebble, 3 seed beads, 1 turquoise nugget, 3 seed beads, 3 citrine beads, 3 seed beads, 1 amber pebble.

Adding the hook and eye clasp to finish

Attention: before threading the clasp, have in mind how somebody will wear the necklace to learn which part of the clasp belongs to which end. They take the ends of the necklace with both hands and the right hand will “hook” the clasp close. That means the hook part of the clasp should be threaded in the right leg of the necklace.

The clasp is threaded with the same technique as you threaded the seed bead that secured the ends of the necklace; the difference is that this time, the clasp will act as the “stopper”.

Thread a seed bead first and then one part of the clasp. Thread the nymo back through the seed bead and through the next couple of beads. Secure with a surgeon’s knot and cut the excess nymo.

Repeat for the other end and your necklace is ready to be worn! Instead of the large turquoise nugget used here, you can make yourself a lovely silver metal centerpiece.

Go to the beginner’s section to see basic metalsmithing techniques.

For more about different styles of bead necklaces, refer to the section about seven models of beaded jewelry here

See yet another incredibly simple bead project, it just takes 10 minutes to arrange and is great for summer parties.

Go from Turquoise Jewelry back to Beaded Jewelry Designs