How To Make Jewelry with Beads and Marcia DeCoster

Marcia DeCoster, Beadwork Designer of the Year 2015, is a talented beadweaving artist. Marcia shows us how to make jewelry with beads using many different stitches to create her beadwork designs. You can see highlights of her skills and patterns in the eBook 10 Projects by Designer of the Year Marcia DeCoster.

What’s Inside

Throughout the book, Marcia takes us through her favorite beading techniques and dazzles us with her color and bead-selection prowess.

This dynamic bracelet is comprised of blocks stitched using right angle-weave. String the blocks together using elastic cording or, as Marcia suggests, string the blocks using beading wire, crimp beads and a clasp.

How to Make Jewelry With Beads in an Elegant Color Palette

For a more elegant design, check out Pharaoh’s Daughter. The rich texture and smart shaping of this crenulated collar is achieved by using graduated sizes of seed beads and gathering a strip of right-angle weave into a ruffle.

The rich blend of bead colors in this collar includes:

• a few different olive matte seed bead variations
• berry AB seed beads
• bronze metallic seed beads
• olivine AB2X crystal bicone beads
• volcano crystal sequins
• bronze fire-polished rounds.

Wowza!

Marcia finds she is often inspired to create a palette for a design before she’s ready to bead it. She fills a small pencil box with the chosen beads, labels the intended project, and places it in her “to be beaded” pile.

A Flair for the Exotic

Marcia often travels to the quiet coastal town of Manzanillo, Mexico loaded down with design inspiration and beads. In December 2004, she brought with her a book containing Frank Hess–designed costume jewelry from the 1950s. A bracelet designed with rose montée-studded medallions caught her eye and inspired her to create similar shapes encrusted with crystals and fire-polished beads. In this design, the medallions are joined together with a crystal and the design finished with a crystal briolette. Perfection!

Lacy bead caps, made using a variety of seed beads, crystals and pearls. The caps are joined together using a span of seed beads, creating a netting design over larger beads. Make one to wear alone, make many to create a necklace, two to create a pair of earrings (matching or not!), or just enough to equal a bracelet length.

How to Make Jewelry with Beads and Elegance

Summer Soiree is an elegant necklace, a perfect piece to complete a wedding ensemble. Marcia cleverly beads around an upside-down, see through pendant, giving the appearance of a rare crystal rivoli. Although not bold in color, the color exudes elegance, beauty, and radiance.

On the other side of the spectrum, there’s the night, darkness, and edginess.

New York State of Mind fits my comfort zone and is a design I would wear daily! It embodies what I love most about right-angle weave. It’s cloth-like behavior and ability to have drape be gathered like fabric is so appealing. Add the crystal squares for texture and sparkle and really, how can you resist?

Marcia’s designs never cease to amaze and delight and they get us beading! Enjoy all in this eBook then enjoy weaving up your favorite and maybe stretching your skills and trying something new. With Marcia’s expert instructions and the perfect illustrations, you will succeed!

Yours in creativity,

Marcia shares so much in all she does – check out some of the fan favorites in our store!