Jewelry Making Ideas with Number Beads

Number beads are typically used for making personalized jewelry, but they are so much more versatile, and we want to show you just how many projects you can make using them.  There are many different types of these beads available for purchase. Acrylic beads are great for making projects that risk breaking such as necklaces and bracelets for children or key chains and other items that tend to get tossed around.  Another benefit of acrylic numbered beads is that they are inexpensive and lighter than their glass or metal counterparts.

 

Number Acrylic Beads

Metal numbered beads are also another popular choice.  They are known for their sturdiness and for their quality. Many different styles exist such as sliders, European, rhinestone and alloy beads. Rhinestone and European beads are especially popular right now when it comes to jewelry making. When using European style beads, there are so many ways to string them.  Use them with caprice or snake chain, leather lace, braided cord and anything else that has a wider diameter, so that the beads stay on snug and fit. You can also use soft wire, thread or cord to make flexible projects which can bend.

 

Number Slide Beads

There are many things you can do with number beads. You can mix them with alphabet beads to spell out names, dates and times. These kinds of projects are great for birthdays, wedding anniversaries, proposal date, first kiss day, the `date we met`, date children were born, year of graduation and any other special date that you would like to have on a personalized project. You can also use number beads to make projects for everyone’s number in a sports team or jersey numbers, for a marathon runner numbers, for a grandmother and the number of grandchildren she has,  for counting down days until Christmas (countdown calendar) or weight loss goals. Some practical applications for using them are to create nursing bracelets. Moms use them to remember when the last time they fed their baby. Phone number bracelets are another practical idea for someone who needs help remembering a phone number or for a child in case they get lost. Vertically drilled beads are perfect for making key chains, cell phone charms and bookmarks. They are used for making projects that you would want to read from top to bottom.  Numbered beads are also often used in scrapbooking, card making and on picture frames to embellish then with dates.  You could also use them in making ACEO’s or ATC’s, a popular small format for making art.

 

Number beads bracelets

You can also use these types of beads for making geekery. It’s is also known as Geek Chic, a trend that arose in the beginning of 2000`s where people started to embrace their inner nerd.  Think about making math geekery in jewellery and charms such as using binary code in a necklace, or marking the latitude and longitude of a geographic location.   Popular numbers in geekery are Pi (3.14159) and the Fibonacci sequence – so think about incorporating them in creative ways into your crafts. For example, wish people Happy 3.14159 Day (Happy Pie day) on March 14^th.

Finally, number beads can be used in many ways to incorporate fun into educational activities.  Teach children how to count with numbered bead strands, use them in the lattice multiplication method just to name a few.