Crystal & pearl flowers with sieve backs

I am working on a very exiting project, all a bit hush hush at the moment, it's for a design competition, I will fill you in with the full details as soon as I finish.

I will need your votes!

I will be trying out a few new techniques for this project, today I have been making crystal and pearl flowers using sieve backs.

In my box of vintage goodies I have some 1950's beaded brooches, pictured above, thinking to myself, Mm I wonder how these are made? pliers already in hand!

When I took the back off the brooch I discovered that the beads had been wired onto a metal plate with holes.

After a little snooping around I found out that the metal plates were called sieve backs. Now, what I found quite a lot when searching for sieve backs was that most places sold them singularly without the base plate, which is rather silly as you need the base plate to hide all your wire!!!

I did eventually find some (above) with double loops, perfect for necklaces, bracelets, earring dangles, the list goes on.

(These are the ones I made, they measure 2.5cm when finished)

On my first attempt I used head pins, I found it difficult to twist the wire, it didn't turn out as neat as I would of liked, then I tried 0.4mm wire, still, not quite neat enough, I found 0.3mm wire was the best to use.

To make one flower, you will need:

1x 14mm sieve back & base plate

19 lengths of 0.3mm wire

19 seed beads

1x 5mm Swarovski crystal/pearl

18x 4mm swarovski crystal/pearls

You will also need some pliers and flush cutters. First you will need to cut 19x 10cm lengths of your 0.3mm wire. Next you will need to prepare your wires, push a seed bead to the middle of the wire, then fold over, then push on a crystal, you need to push it over the 2 ends of the wire, the seed bead will stop it falling off the end, pull the ends of your wire with the pliers so your crystal is up close to the seed bead, continue with your other wires. If you are using crystal ab beads make sure the iridescent coated side is facing towards the end of the wires.

Now, time to create your flower.

First, your biggest crystal, post the two ends of wire into two separate holes in the center of the sieve back, twist the wires together tightly with the pliers, then trim off the excess wire (about 0.5cm of wire remaining should be enough).

Then you are going to take two of your prepared wires (4mm crystals) you can push the two ends of each through a single hole on the sieve base, then you are going to twist these together (hope I'm not confusing you too much). Work out from the center till you have your flower.

Trim and flatten your wires, then add your back plate, I found it best to use a pair of small scissors to push down the claws of your back plate, when I used pliers they made dents, I also positioned my back plate so the loops were hidden underneath beads.

And there you have it, all you need to do now is add it to your necklace.

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