How to make a crystal chandelier

I read about how to make chandeliers from beads in one of Eva Malmsten's wonderful dollhouse books. When I saw it for the first time I knew I would never be able to do anything like that, and then I went to a hobby shop and bought a box of beads. The pictures below are not the same chandelier I showed in the previous post, but the principle is the same. You need a lot of patience. And good tools, which I didn't have when I made the first one.

The more threads you have the more gorgeous the chandelier - and the more work of course. Eight to twelve is good, but for this one I was lazy and just took six. You need to tape them because while you thread one the others will fly all over the place.

 You thread as many beads as would make a nice lower part of the chandelier. Then you need a larger ring. For the first chandelier I used a junk bracelet, but this is just a plastic ring that I later covered with studs.

Now comes the tricky bit when you thread the upper part of the chandelier

When you have done that, another small ring to hold all the threads. 

Then of course you need to form it a bit better.