Blue Agate Slice Asymmetrical Necklace Tutorial

Why We Love This Tutorial:

This is a simply strung, long necklace that you can complete in less than an hour! We would often knot between each gemstone bead with this style of necklace, but by using tiny 2mm silver spacer beads we get the same effect with a lot less effort (and time, yay!). We’ve used some of our gorgeous new dyed agate beads for this necklace – heaps of colours available (including a mixed colour nugget, which I think could look very cool in this design!).

Beads and Materials You’ll Need:

• approx. 70pcs 4mm Agate Round Beads (we have used blue agate 4mm round beads; one strand is enough for this project).
• Agate Cube Nugget Beads (we have used pale blue cube nuggets; one strand is enough for this project).
• Gemstone Pendant. (We have used a Blue Agate Slice Pendant in this design.)
• approx. 130pcs 2mm silver spacer beads (these are sold by the bag of 100pcs, so you’ll need two bags).
• 2x Glue on bails
• Clasp of your choice
• 2x Crimps
• 2x clamshells (or you can just use the crimps, but I like the neat look of clamshells).
• Tiger Tail (we used 0.45mm)
• Hypocement Glue

Tools You’ll Need:

• Flat Nose pliers (for crimping)
• Scissors (for cutting tiger tail – never use pliers for this!)

Method:

1. First, glue your bails onto the agate slice. This glue takes 24 hours to fully harden, so I recommend doing this step a day earlier. Or… you could glue the agate slice onto the bails at the very end after the necklace is complete.
2. Take a piece of tigertail about 70cm long. Thread on a crimp followed by 10x silver 2mm spacer beads. Thread the tigertail through the loop on the bail and back through the crimp. Squash the crimp using flat pointy nose pliers.
3. Trim the short tail of tigertail to about 4mm after the crimp, leaving the long tail to form the necklace. Repeat this for the other side of the agate slice (i.e. onto the other bail).
4. Now it’s time to thread on the beads. We have made this necklace asymmetrical, but if you’d prefer the pendant just to be centered at the front that’s okay also.
   • On the longer side, we have used 32x cube agate nuggets. Each cube nugget has a 4mm agate in-between (and every bead is spaced with a 2mm silver spacer bead).
   • On the shorter side, we have used 11x cube agate nuggets.
   • Finally, we have finished the necklace with a section of 4mm agate beads alone, to go around the back of the neck. We’ve used 14x 4mm agate round beads on each end of the necklace.
5. Finish the necklace off with a clasp of your choice. We have used a toggle clasp, but any style (lobster, magnetic) will work just fine. We have also used clamshells in addition to crimps, as we like the neat finish.
6. And that’s it!