My First Design Santa Clause Earrings
Designing With Beads is an evolutionary step for beaders that become addicted to beads. I started beading in 1999 as a hobby. I am now creating my own designs. My favorite beads are #11 Delica seed beads and #15 Rocailles seed beads.
These beauties was my first ever design. I made them with #15 Rocailles seed beads. They took me over a month to design. The first step in designing is deciding what stitch to use. My favorite stitches are brick stitch and tubular peyote. I chose brick stitch for these earrings. I drew out my design on graph paper for brick stitch bead that I printed out from Firemountain Gems. The second step is beading your design that you created. Sometimes it just doesn’t look right. When this happens you have to make adjustments to your pattern and then bead it again. The Earrings above took lots of patience and determination not to give up. Each piece is made seperate and then sewn together. The body and head are stuffed with cotton. It is a 3D piece and his arms move.
My Newest Creation
I don’t use graph paper anymore I uploaded Bead Tool 4 onto my computer so it is a lot easier to draw my pattern and make changes to it. The process is still the same you draw it, then you bead it and make adjustments to the pattern as needed but it is a lot easier making adjustments on a pattern you can add or erase instead of starting over completely. Bead Tool4 also allows you to pick the exact bead color/ size and beads you want and gives you the information you need to order your beads. I find designing this way easier and faster. Bead tool gives you a variety of stitches to choose from. You don’t have to wad your paper up and start again simply erase what you want to change and change it.
