I’ve known people who take beading classes. I adopted stringing beads readily and never doubted the intricacies nor my ability to achieve my desired results. I just started and would take the beads apart if they didn’t look the way I wanted them to look.
My first attempts were very basic but I found, just in sewing, if I started off with an expensive pendant, the necklace was more likely to turn out well no matter what I did.
The pendent in this case started out as a ring, but at the time I felt it was too big. I found it in an antique shop for $60 and first used a hacksaw to remove the ring component and then sanded the back until it was smooth.
I found the glass beads in a belly dancing supply store in Berkeley and the solid silver separators and silver plated beads set of the bead work perfectly.
I like bigger, chunky necklaces and even earrings especially because I wear my hair long and the trick to creating an interesting piece is to have multiple sizes of the beads.
I have seen necklaces where all the beads are the same size, but they don’t appear as interesting to me as varying the sizes.