Making Wire Beaded Chokers
I was cruising the mall with my sister, niece, and mom a few weeks ago when we came upon one of those little booths with all kinds of cool hair ornaments and fun jewelry. Among the butterfly clips, dragon fly hair pins, and fuzzy pony tail holders, they were also selling memory wire beaded chokers. My sister also makes jewelry and we both examined it commenting, "Gee, we could make that." A few days later, I was watching a soap opera when I noticed one of the characters was wearing one of these cool chokers. She wasn't a teeny boper and the choker really looked nice on her. So, I determined I had better try one out.
You could use just about any type of beads you want with this choker. I recommend trying to keep them no larger than 4mm. (Hematite beads would work nicely.) I used a combination of size 11 Japanese seed beads along with 4 and 6 mm Czech crystals. Many of these chokers were designed to wrap around the throat twice, but I also like the look of the single wrap choker.
If you aren't normally into seed beads, this might be a chance to give them a try. I like Japanese the best because they are more regular in size than the Czech usually are. To make this choker you'll need:
- Wire cutters
- Round nosed pliers
- Memory wire necklace wire
- Your choice of beads (seed beads, crystals beads, etc.)
1. First, cut the memory wire. If you want it to wrap around the neck twice, you'll need to cut at least two full loops of the wire. For a single wrap, about 1 ½ loops is plenty.
2. Use round nosed pliers to make a loop on one end of the wire.
3. Now it's time to string your beads. If you use seed beads, I recommend putting the beads in a shallow dish. Hold the unlooped end of the wire and scoop the beads onto the wire by dipping the end of the wire into the bowl and through the pile of beads. (Seasoned seed beaders already know this technique because they do this using a needle instead of wire.) If you want your bead design to be in the middle of the necklace, continue to scoop on the beads until you have enough on to almost cover about half of the wire.
4. Next, add your accent beads. For the choker pictured below, I used purple iridescent 11 Japanese seed beads as my main color and accented the middle part with 4mm amethyst colored Czech beads, 6mm clear Czech beads, and one multicolored cloisonné bead.
5. Fill up the rest of the wire with your main color of beads.
6. Finish the necklace with another loop as described in step 2.
Here is a choker I made using the same technique only I used pink iridescent seed beads and accented the wire about every 1.5 inches with pink Czech crystals. This way the design goes all around the wire.
I've worn these chokers a few times and found they feel a little tight at first. However, just as with the bracelet wire, the necklace wire starts to relax after you wear it a few times and conforms to your neck. I think these would makes nice gifts, especially for the teenager on your list. If you do any shows, these would make a good trendy, impulse purchase item to add to your table. (You could also make matching bracelets.) The ones we saw in the mall were going for $3.50. However, their beads were not as nice as the ones I used.
For the instructions and tips on using memory wire, you might want to review my past project on Making a Memory Wire Bracelet.
I've also created a list of suppliers of memory wire.
All graphics created by Tammy Powley.