When I saw in Prague woman wearing beaded cuff similar to this, my first thought was "I have to make this!" Hers was made with normal beads, but as a true purple and pearls lover, I decided to go with purple pearl and complementing crystal beads. The process of making the cuff itself is easy, but the difficult parts are the finishing touches, especially the closure - let's check how I made it.
Materials required for this project are:
- Pearl and beads (go for mix of different sized ones, pick also "filler" neutral ones - small clear ones in my case)
- Thicker wire for the frame (I would highly suggest using thicker than mine - 2mm or more should be better)
- Thin wire
- Wire-cutters
Cut the thicker wire. Measure the length around you wrist plus add some extra for the closure - I would say 80 cm should be enough.
Shape one side of frame of the cuff. If you use relatively thin wire, as I did, I greatly recommend using another piece of wire shaped like in the picture no. 1. This helps you maintain the same width of the cuff.
Wrap the thin wire around the short side of the cuff frame (picture no. 2). I recommend cutting the thin wire into sections first in order to make it easier to work with (but if you do this, don't forget to secure the ends and beginnings of each section well to the frame). Once u have all your short side wrapped, wrap twice around the thick wire again.
Add a pearl to your wire. Secure it in place by looping the wire through it once again. If you are not sure how to do so, check the picture I made for the beaded necklace tutorial. After securing the pearl, wrap the wire around the thick wire on the other side of the cuff frame.
Repeat until cuff is large enough to fit your wrist. Then finish the frame as shown in the picture no. 3. You just wrap both wires together and then fold them as shown. This is why you need extra length of the thick wire - the closure requires a lot of wire.
Finish the closure. Once you have your frame finished, you want to make your hook durable, so that your cuff doesn't open while you wear it. For the wire being scratchy, i decided to wrap the hook in generous amount of thin wire, which also makes the hook more durable.
I hope you like your new cuff at least as much as I like mine! Let me know what colour scheme did you use for yours. :)
