Club Tropicana

Mix citrus and sunshine beads to create Corinne Bradd's summery set

Corinne Bradd, MJ Designer

Always use memory wire cutters as the regular sort will get blunted and damaged very quickly!

This eye-catching jewellery set will brighten up any holiday wardrobe, in mouthwatering shades of orange, lemon and lime. Despite their complex, multi-stranded look, all three pieces are easy to make, simply by threading your chosen selection of beads onto coils of memory wire.

Necklace

1. Cut two pieces of ring-sized memory wire, a coil and a half long. Thread both rings with large-holed rondelle beads to fill a complete coil before passing the leftover ends of the wire through the beads a second time to secure the ring.
2. Cut two more pieces of ring-sized memory wire and bend one end of each into a tight loop with roundnosed pliers. Thread a full coil with smallerholed glass beads, securing with a loop in the other end of the wire. Hold the ends of the rings together with small jump rings. Create a larger ring of peridot cube beads on bracelet-sized memory wire, approximately 7.5cm diameter, in the same way.
3. Cut a 2.5m length of silver nyloncoated wire and crimp temporarily close to one end. Thread the wire with 60cm of gold bugle beads, followed by the same length of silver-lined orange seeds, pearl orange seeds and pearl lime beads. Crimp the other end of the wire temporarily so there is room on the wire for the beads to move.
4. Hold the wire in the centre, allowing the beads to fall to either end. Fold the wire and thread the loop through a crimp, but do not tighten. Fit a jump ring into the loop of wire. Find the middle of the wire between the different beads on each half and do the same, making sure the crimps are not tightened.
5. Take the two loose ends of the wire and manipulate the beads along the length so that the loops in the crimps are all approximately 2mm long. Hold the wires and cut off the temporary crimps at the end. Thread the wires through the centre crimp alongside the loop and flatten the finding to secure. Fix this part of the beaded wire to a second jump ring.
6. Take the two double thicknesses of beaded wire and pass them through the rings you have made, threading the lengths in opposite directions to hold the rings in place. When complete, tighten the crimps below the jump rings and fit a single jump ring and bolt ring clasp into them. Twist the necklace before fastening if desired.

Cuff

1. Cut eight pieces of bracelet-sized memory wire, 2cm coil. Bend one end of each piece into a tight loop with round-nosed pliers. Thread up four lengths with seed and bugle beads, bending the end of the wire into a loop when each bracelet is full.
2. Thread up the remaining four pieces with larger beads and secure as before. Pass an eye pin through one loop on each bracelet, alternating the sizes of bead as you go. Trim and bend the end of the pin into a loop to hold all the lengths onto it.
3. Separate the bracelets into adjacent pairs and loosely plait them together. Hold the end of the plait in one hand and thread a second eye pin through the free loops at the other end, trimming and bending the end of the pin into a loop to secure.

Ring

1. Cut a length of ring five coils long and bend one end into a tight loop with round-nosed pliers. Thread on orange pearl seeds to fill one complete coil. Add a coil of round goldenrod beads, followed by one of peridot cubes and another of silver-lined orange seeds.
2. Push all the beads tightly up to the looped end and hold the remaining wire close to the last beads with snipe-nosed pliers. Trim the wire to 7mm and bend into a loop to secure the ring.