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Making a beaded bauble


Pick a large lightweight wood or plastic bead for the base of this fun project. Since my wooden bead was painted blue, I decided not to fight against fate, but picked a good selection of blue beads in various sizes for most of the covering. I also threw in some contrasting beads for fun!


Materials & Tools

Large wood or plastic bead to cover
Nymo 0 thread
Delicas and/or Czech seed beads in sizes 15/0, 11/0, 8/0, or even 6/0 as desired
Beading needle


1 Loop the thread through the hole of the large bead several times, and tie a knot. These threads will be covered as you work.


2 String on beads to reach from hole to hole, tie off at the top, go back through the hole and repeat several times.


3 Begin to weave beads off of the foundation strings, using peyote, square stitch, or whatever you wish. I used peyote.


4 When all the strings are several rows of beads wide, begin to connect from string to string with peyote stitch.


5 Use different sized beads to fill in all spaces except for the hole through the large bead.


6 Here are a few shots of the finished bead from different angles. It's hard to see the hole through the large bead, but it is still there. You can now add a wire through the hole to create a pendant, or you can string the large bead as part of a necklace.



Copyright 2009 Cyndi Lavin. Not to be reprinted, resold, or redistributed for profit. May be printed out for personal use or distributed electronically provided that entire file, including this notice, remains intact.


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Comments

jodi said…
Cool. Thanks for sharing. I'm eager to try this.
Cyndi L said…
I know you love bead embroidery, Jodi, so just think of it as embroidery without a canvas :-)
LDWatkins said…
Very nice! I've not tried my hand at beading but that makes me want to. Lynda
Cyndi L said…
I'm going to give you a warning then...run away, run away, while there's still time!! LOL!

OK, really, working with beads is highly addictive, so even though I recommend it, I just want you to be warned :-)
Carmen said…
És preciòs. Moltes gràcies. M'ha agradat molt.
Cyndi L said…
Thank you for your visit, Carmen!
Jeannie said…
I'd have a big balled mess. You make it look easy and the instructions are very clear. I'll give it a try.
Cyndi L said…
LOL!! Jeannie, don't forget that one person's big balled mess is another person's freeform treasure! :-)
Susan Z said…
Looks like fun, think I will try it. Thanks. Susan Z
Cyndi L said…
I'd love to see what you make, Susan!
Shirley said…
Cyndi, these are really cool. I haven't tried beaded beads, and I am looking for inspiration to teach a class of homeschoolers some basic stitches. Stumbled onto your site, and oh my, now I have something for me to try!
Thanks,
Shirley
Cyndi L said…
I'm so glad you found this, Shirley! You can make it a really fun and easier project by using slightly larger sized beads to start. It helps people from getting discouraged :-)
SPUD1 said…
Hi, my name is Stephanie, I know this is four years later. I just found your website by looking for beaded bead images. I was very interested in this way of covering wood beads. My questions are, when you say go through the bead several times in line number one then, you say string beads on the thread and go though the bead several times on the second line. does this mean to do two things?Wrap several strings, then string several strings with beads and tie knots on each string? thank you so much.
Cyndi L said…
Hi Stephanie! Yes, you've got it exactly right. First just wrap the bead with several rounds of thread and knot it. It will be covered up by the following steps. The next step is to wrap the bead again, but this time add beads to each wrap. I think it's a good idea to knot each wrap this time. I'd love to see what you make!
Anonymous said…
i love your work, but it may seem like a silly question but how do you tie it all off to stop it unravelling? Janet
Cyndi L said…
Janet, that's not a silly question at all! You've got several choices. You could simply tie a few knots in between beads and then hit them with a dab of cement (I use G-S Hypo Cement for this). Or you could weave your thread end back and forth through the work enough times to insure that it won't pull out. Or you could be really compulsive and do both! I usually do the "weaving" or the "both" method. For this one, just weaving, because there's not much movement or stress that the piece will go through once it's finished.
Unknown said…
...And who says I'm not gonna try this???? It's beautiful. I hope mine turns out more beautiful*wink*. Thanks Cyndi for the very useful tutorial