Artificial glass grapes

As it's nigh to impossible to get artificial grapes made from glass or even acrylic, I decided to attempt making them myself. Luckily my favoured bead shop had purple glass beads on sale, in four different sizes, of which I bought a couple, and some green wire for the stems. I spent the evening creating a thoroughly acceptable bunch of grapes, did some calculation and rushed back to the shop the next day to buy the rest of the beads.

First you start by cutting pieces of wire, the first attempt was from fourteen inches growing one centimetre shorter each row, but this makes for a very bulky stem. In the second attempt I started with eleven centimetres for all of the grapes, which did not change much except that the stem is shorter and less bulky, but only towards the end...

So, cut your wire in regular pieces of your choice, then use a pair of fine pliers to bend one end and press it flat. You want the bead to get stuck at this thicker end without the wire-end showing (and without the bead cracking because of the wire-end being too thick), so it's a question of intuition and gentle manipulation. If it doesn't work at all, you can also add a drop of jewellery glue to the end before moving the bead over it to secure it.

Bend approximately 2-3 mm for the smaller beads, increasing for the larger ones.

Then arrange the stems and twist the wire to make up a stem. Start with five small ones, one as the bottom centre, joined by the other four as the first circle of grapes. Keep adding grapes in increasing sizes to make up a complete bunch.

I never cared much about what to do with the stem, as they're intended as decoration on my next baroque dress and the stems will be covered by foliage and ribbons anyway.