Craft Blog

Did you know you can make beautiful candle holders for your self or others? This is a craft idea that works for everyone, even your kids, with adult supervision. When starting a new project it is always recommended to go to a craft store or craft website for instructions, idea of patterns, and pricing of materials.

Once you have the idea and cost of the craft project picked out the fun part begins. You can pick to do a simple design with crystal or glass beads that the flame light can bounce off of. You could also do a more detailed beaded candle holder.

For these projects you would need:

1. Glass or crystal beads
2. Wire thread so that it does not melt when the candle holder heats up
3. A pair of wire cutters
4. A pair of pliers.
5. A glass cup or cups that have a groove in the top that you can string the beads on the wire and the wrap it around and glass in the groove.
6. A plain candle stick or sticks that are flat on top and on bottom
7. A block of wood or pieces of wood about 2"x3"
8. Stretchy elastic stings
9. Stencils
10. Pencils
11. Craft glue that dries clearly
12. Small beads for the more detailed candle holder
13. Candles

For the first beaded candle holder you will need the wire cutters, pliers, glass beads, a glass cup or cups. Once you have all the materials, decide in what order or pattern you’ll want to place all the beads. Next you cut a piece of wire about 2 inches longer than you need. You fold the wire on one end to keep the beads from falling off as you string them. Once you have all the beads strung very carefully wrap the beaded wire around the groove in the glass cup.  Wrap all the way around and meet the ends, twist the excess together. Then take the pliers and twist the wire tight so the beads do not slip down. Cut the excess off and place a candle inside and light it; then sit back and watch the colors bounce off the beads.

Another idea for a beaded candle is taking a preformed or plain candle holder and beads, stretchy elastic string, scissors and craft glue. You can make several bracelet rings that are the size of the straight space between the top flat candle stand and the wide base and sting. You can string the beads and then stretch them over the top or base and stack them up the middle or string them and tie them on one at a time. When you place the final top and bottom bracelet on the middle, you need to glue them in place to keep the others from slipping. If they are all a little loose, you can glue them to the middle as you go so that you do not have gaps. Once the glue dries you can place a candle on the flat top and enjoy.

Many like to make a beaded candle holder that takes a little more effort and requires tweezers and a stencil with a pattern. Use the extra small beads and craft glue, and a flat or smooth surface that you can draw a pattern on even a block of wood would work. Take the stencil and wrap it around the item you picked to draw on in this case a piece of wood and start to trace the stencil pattern onto the wood. Once you have the pattern you desire trace on the wood, the next step is to pick what color of beads to out line the traced pattern and what colors you’ll want to fill it in with. Note, in leaves and solid patterns you can use more than one color to give it more of a natural look. Then pick up the bead with the tweezers and dip it in the glue. Then place it on the pattern where you want it to go. Repeat this step till you have completed the pattern or picture the way you want it. Let the glue dry and then place a candle on top and look at your fine work.

You can see there are many ways to make a beaded candle holder. Just have to decide how you want it to look. You can find information on crafts like this in many places such as the local library, internet, craft stores, and even sometimes local classes

If you are interested in using beads for jewelry, crafting or other art forms it would be helpful to know about the different types of decorative beads and what they can be used for. It is pretty common for any type of decorative bead to be used for any kind of jewelry making, but some beads are actually not recommended for jewelry making due to their characteristics. There are also other beads that are better suited for arts and crafts instead of jewelry making.

Here are the types of decorative beads, and their uses
 Chevron beads – these types of beads are a special kind of glass bead that was originally made for the slave trade in Africa. They are made up of many consecutive layers of colored glass, with the core being formed as a star shaped mold and can have anywhere from five to fifteen points. Also the layers of glass can be of any color, but are traditionally red, white, and blue. These beads are usually used for jewelry.
 Dichroic beads – these are glass beads that have multiple layers of micro-thin metals on top of the glass.
 Ethnic beads – these are another type of trade bead, but they are used for specific purposes in certain countries. They can be used to make rosaries, used for ceremony jewelry or can be used to make jewelry to be buried with the dead.
 Faux natural beads – these beads are basically any kind of imitation of original material such as gemstones, pearls, rocks, minerals, precious metals and ivory.
 Fire polished beads – these beads are another type of glass bead, except they are faceted and are very popular to use when making jewelry. They come in sizes from 3 mm to 22 mm. The pattern of the edges are always the same, which is why they can be confused with lead crystal beads.
 Furnace glass beads – these beads are usually used for art purposes. And they are made using traditional glass working techniques that are often used to make art glass objects. You can use these beads for other purposes, but because of their design and shapes you mostly find them in art projects rather than jewelry.
 Lampwork beads – these are another form of glass beads that are made by using a torch to heat a rod of glass and spinning the resulting thread around a metal rod covered in bead release. After the base bead has been formed other colors of glass are added to create numerous designs.
 Lead crystal beads – these are great beads for jewelers and hobbyists. They have a high content of lead oxide, which makes them crystal rather than glass. Because they are crystal they sparkle more than glass beads and are often multi-faceted so that the resemble gemstones. These types of beads are often used for crafts and jewelry where crystal is needed. Do not confuse these beads with fake crystal beads.
 Millefiori beads – these types of glass beads are made of plain wound glass bead cores and thin slices of cut cane which are pressed into the bead surface. This technique forms mosaic like patterns
 Pressed glass beads – these type of beads are a glass bead that have been made from a mold to give it its shape. These beads can have holes punched into in pretty much any direction.
 Seed beads – these beads are pretty much uniformly shaped, meaning that they are all the same shape which is a spheroidal shape. They range in size from under a millimeter to several millimeters. This type of bead is a generic term that refers to any small type of bead that is rounded in shape. These kinds of beads are most often used for loom and off-loom bead weaving, but can also be used for simple stringing or as spacers between others beads when making jewelry. The larger beads are used in various fiber crafts as a type of embellishment or are used in crocheting with fiber or wire.
 Shell beads – these types of beads are made from sea sheels from a variety of different shelled fish, such as oysters, abalone, etc. You mostly find these beads used in jewelry, art, and crafts.
 Trade beads or slave beads – these kinds of beads are pretty much the same thing as Chevron beads and are used for the same purposes.