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Monday, May 17, 2010

Indian Agate Coil Bracelet

Simply Beads Indian Agate Coil kit of the monthI decided to spend this lovely warm afternoon making the next kit from Simply Beads, the Indian Agate Coil. This bracelet is made with memory wire which I have never worked with, and various shapes and sizes of Indian Agate, black stone and freshwater pearls.

Indian Agate is also known as fancy jasper and is considered a semi-precious stone. It is an opaque stone that comes in many different colors and patterns and is believed to eliminate worry and depression and promote mental clarity. Black stone is a generic term for semiprecious stones that are dyed and polished and fresh water pearls are, well, fresh water pearls.

I actually liked this kit as is, without any tweaking, and it was pretty straight forward. String the beads on the wire and secure the ends. Of course when I had it finished I decided that is was a little too wide for my wrist and I ended up taking off a coil or two. The memory wire was a little more difficult to make a loop in than the other wire I have been using, but not impossible. I bought a pair of special cutters for the wire which cut it like butter. I tried my regular "hardware store" cutters on the scrap and they did a perfectly good job too.

Indian Agate Coil braceletThis project was very easy to do and looks nice with the semi-precious stones. It would be a great project for kids. Give them a coil of wire with one end already secured and an assortment of beads and let the budding fashion designers do their thing.