Hi I'm Ali with Potamac bead company and I’m going to show you how to do a simple charm bracelet without knowing any wire working or really kind of what you need to do. So what I’ve done here is I’ve started with a Rolo chain and the Rolo chain is a thick chain that has big open links to it. You can go thicker, thinner and what i've done is the same process that I’ll be doing to add the charms. I've added my clasp and because I'm doing a, I'm in our Ocean City location today, I'm going to do a kind of sea themed charm bracelet.
I've cut my Rolo chain to the length of my wrist plus about additional half-inch and that's going to allow a little room for your charms to hang off your bracelet. And on the clasp, i've used the same technique that I will use to add the charms. For this you want to purchase split rings, so split rings, when you're looking at them, are just like a keychain ring. They have opening that you can pull open and kind of spin your things around. You don't want to use jump rings for this unless you're going to be soldering because you'll have a really high chance of losing your charms as you're walking around with it.
Charm bracelets can be really, really, heavy because by the time you get more and more things on to them and what I'm going to do to open up this split ring, they make a little tool for this, I don't think it's that great. So I usually just wreck my fingernails and I'm going to put my fingernail and put it right in between that little section of my split ring and I don't have great nails because I do this all the time.
What I'm going to do is slide my open up my ring enough to get my charm on, use a flat or needle nose pliers just slide my charm back a little bit so it's staying on that split ring and then I'm going to pick a place on my chain to add my charm. So I'm going to add mine, right here. If you have a lot of chain you can kind of or a lot of charms you can pre-plan where you want everything to go, I'm just going to do it at random here.
Once I have my charm on and I'm hooked into one of my links of chain, I'm going to spin the split ring around with my flat nose pliers and you're just doing this gently because you don't want to manipulate that split ring into a different shape and that is going to hang directly onto my charm bracelet. So one thing you're going to want to make sure when you add your next charm, is now I have a designated space with this Rolo chain, so depending on which chain you're using, I have a designated side that I'm using to add my charms on.
When I hang my next charm I want to make sure that it's in a ring that goes up and down rather than one of the Rings that goes side-by-side that's connecting them. So when I hang my next chain I'm going to hang it off of that Rolo ring and again I'm just opening my split ring with my nail, you can use a tweezers for this also.
I'm going to put on my charm, the charm kind of holds it open then so that way you can put it on to your chain. Any kind of chain will work for this, you just need to make sure that your loops are big enough that the split ring will kind of hang out in between. Again I'm going to make sure that I grab one of these rings that's facing down, I'm going to slide this on and then what I'm going to do is spin that ring around in order to close it up, and that's going to close the ring up and then my charm is going to hang down in place next to my other one.
I'm going to continue doing this the whole length of the chain, you can also get more creative once you learn why you're working if you watch our videos for how to make head pins, you can attach or how to use head pins and make your wires. You can basically attach an ear wire idea right in between these to add some colour and some beads on it too. Thanks for watching and hopefully you make a fun trinket or charm bracelet.
I've cut my Rolo chain to the length of my wrist plus about additional half-inch and that's going to allow a little room for your charms to hang off your bracelet. And on the clasp, i've used the same technique that I will use to add the charms. For this you want to purchase split rings, so split rings, when you're looking at them, are just like a keychain ring. They have opening that you can pull open and kind of spin your things around. You don't want to use jump rings for this unless you're going to be soldering because you'll have a really high chance of losing your charms as you're walking around with it.
Charm bracelets can be really, really, heavy because by the time you get more and more things on to them and what I'm going to do to open up this split ring, they make a little tool for this, I don't think it's that great. So I usually just wreck my fingernails and I'm going to put my fingernail and put it right in between that little section of my split ring and I don't have great nails because I do this all the time.
What I'm going to do is slide my open up my ring enough to get my charm on, use a flat or needle nose pliers just slide my charm back a little bit so it's staying on that split ring and then I'm going to pick a place on my chain to add my charm. So I'm going to add mine, right here. If you have a lot of chain you can kind of or a lot of charms you can pre-plan where you want everything to go, I'm just going to do it at random here.
Once I have my charm on and I'm hooked into one of my links of chain, I'm going to spin the split ring around with my flat nose pliers and you're just doing this gently because you don't want to manipulate that split ring into a different shape and that is going to hang directly onto my charm bracelet. So one thing you're going to want to make sure when you add your next charm, is now I have a designated space with this Rolo chain, so depending on which chain you're using, I have a designated side that I'm using to add my charms on.
When I hang my next charm I want to make sure that it's in a ring that goes up and down rather than one of the Rings that goes side-by-side that's connecting them. So when I hang my next chain I'm going to hang it off of that Rolo ring and again I'm just opening my split ring with my nail, you can use a tweezers for this also.
I'm going to put on my charm, the charm kind of holds it open then so that way you can put it on to your chain. Any kind of chain will work for this, you just need to make sure that your loops are big enough that the split ring will kind of hang out in between. Again I'm going to make sure that I grab one of these rings that's facing down, I'm going to slide this on and then what I'm going to do is spin that ring around in order to close it up, and that's going to close the ring up and then my charm is going to hang down in place next to my other one.
I'm going to continue doing this the whole length of the chain, you can also get more creative once you learn why you're working if you watch our videos for how to make head pins, you can attach or how to use head pins and make your wires. You can basically attach an ear wire idea right in between these to add some colour and some beads on it too. Thanks for watching and hopefully you make a fun trinket or charm bracelet.