Blooming Lovely

Get set for spring with Brenda Harvey’s shrink plastic and bead creations

This striking floral bib necklace has been made by layering coloured shrink plastic shapes together with wire. If you want to make even more of the style statement, layer up with the simpler dragonfly necklace, then complete your look with drop earrings and a charm bracelet. Shrink plastic is great for making jewellery; for long-lasting designs simply sand the sheets before applying ink and always do a small test piece first.

Download the templates: Blooming Lovely Pattern

Bib-style Necklace

1. Punch out three small kikyou flowers from white shrink plastic and one from transparent plastic then punch a hole in the centre of each. Sand to allow the colour to adhere then coat one side of the transparent shape using a yellow inkpad. Heat them all either in an oven or using a craft heat gun, according to the manufacturer's instructions.
2. One side of the coloured bloom will look shiny and the other will have a matt finish. Punch out two dragonflies from white shrink plastic (do not punch holes in the centres), colour one jade and the other purple and heat to shrink, sanding the surface beforehand to help the ink adhere.
3. Draw three simple five-petalled flower shapes to use as templates, approximately 8cm, 12cm and 15cm in diameter. Or use the download above. Cut out one large flower and two medium in white shrink plastic and two small motifs in transparent shrink plastic.
4. Punch a 4mm diameter hole in the centre of each flower. Colour the medium flowers yellow and the small ones purple. Draw a simple leaf shape approximately 8cm x 4cm (or download the template from our website), cut out two in white shrink plastic and colour with the jade inkpad. Heat all five flowers and the two leaves to shrink.
5. Assemble the flowers as shown, layering, wrapping and wiring them together with silver-plated 0.4mm wire, and adding rocailles to some of the flower centres. Use Diamond Glaze glue for added strength where the petals overlap and to affix the leaves to the back. Wrap the purple dragonfly with wire to secure, and affix the green one directly to a petal with adhesive.
6. Carefully hide all of the ends of the wires at the reverse of the bib and tuck neatly under with round-nosed so that they do not protrude. Decide on the finished length of your necklace and cut a piece of bead stringing wire 10cm longer than this. Thread it carefully through the back of the flowered bib and add a mix of glass beads at each side, using teal rocailles as spacers.
7. Finish with three rocailles at each end, add two crimp beads followed by one half of the clasp. Take the wires back through the crimp beads and compress with flatnosed pliers. Trim the excess wires to 0.5cm and hide inside the rocailles.

Dragonfly Necklace

1. Punch out three kikyou flowers from white shrink plastic and 11 from transparent plastic. Punch a single 4mm hole in the centre of each. Heat the three white ones until shrunk. Colour six of the remainder purple and five yellow, sanding beforehand, then heat to shrink. Punch out five dragonflies in transparent shrink plastic, punch a hole in the centre, colour one side with the jade inkpad and heat.
2. Decide on the finished length of your necklace and cut two pieces of bead stringing wire, 25cm longer than this. Lay out the design on a beading mat or board. Thread onto the wire and carefully check that the finished length will be correct. You can easily alter the length by adding or subtracting rocaille beads.
3. At one end add two crimps followed by one half of the clasp. Take the wires back through the crimps and compress with flatnosed pliers. Trim the ends and hide them inside the first bead added. Pass on a glass bead and single rocaille onto both wires, after this separate the wires and add a medium-sized bead onto each.
4. Bring both wires back together and thread with another bead (a rocaille or other tiny bead), split the wires again and thread separately as before. Add another glass bead and the first of the shrink plastic flowers by threading one wire from underneath and the other from the top; this will make the motif sit flat.
5. Carry on repeating this sequence, occasionally incorporating a dragonfly sandwiched between two spacer beads. Once you have reached the desired length add two crimp beads to each end followed by the second half of the clasp and finish as before.