Chainmaille Project Inspiration: Using crystals in your maille

Our Featured Product coming up for April is Swarovski® Faceted Round Crystal Beads in 6mm or 8mm, available on our findings page. Integrating crystal beads into chainmaille is a trend that has been developing over the last several years; we love the combination of shiny rings and bling-y beads.

There are a variety of ways to include crystal beads in your work. For this post, we pulled together lots of inspirational images of projects created by a wide variety of chainmaille artists (more information for each can be found by clicking the image and many can be found on our magazine projects page.) You’ll notice that more often than not, the beads are added using looped wire. We recommend using Wubbers Round Nose Pliers to aid in this task.

We hope these projects will inspire you to experiment with adding crystals into your own work – who knows, it could just earn you a $25 Blue Buddha gift certificate! (Stay tuned to our blog for details.) For even more inspiration, check out our past blog post matching the crystals to our niobium colors. You may also find our post about caring for jewelry with fragile components helpful.