Tag: 2ifbysea

My First Beaded Bead

I mentioned that I wanted to go to the LBS to get some supplies to make some beaded beads – the kids were being too lazy for me to deal with! I did finally get there this morning and made my first beaded bead this afternoon. Here’s how it turned out. NOT perfect, but not too bad, either. There are some places where I have too many beads. I do know that I will write down the number of beads in a row, for the next one, based on this one, to see if that helps. I did learn a few other things as well.

(1) You really need to have all your supplies laid out in an orderly fashion before you start on this project! Just a really good idea for about anything in life, I’d imagine, but especially when removing little bitty seed beads from the thread – they tend to go all over the place if you don’t manage them ahead of time!

(2) Don’t do bead weaving while you are making dinner, paying attention to three kids (clearly being outnumbered 3 to 1) AND trying to watch the news that you haven’t seen for a week. Oh, and having that much needed glass of wine. Strike that – have the wine, don’t do anything else!

(3) While you can leave a cross-stitch project and come back to it with no problem (I know this because cross-stitch is an art with which I have a lot of experience), you just can’t leave this project to go flip the burgers or settle a dispute!

(4) You CAN improvise. I used size 11 seed beads and it looks fine – it might look more polished with size 15’s, and I’ll find that out when I get home to my order of size 15 beads that I can’t wait to get, but 11’s look ok!

Finally, thanks again to Cristi from 2ifbysea for sending me the pattern I used!

BTW, the engineer gets back tonight!!!!

YAY!

YAY! I finally went down to the LBS here in Hilton Head today! It’s called High Tide Beads. They have lots and lots of gemstones and findings and loose beads, etc. I bought the gorgeous turquoise beads up top – it’s cloudy here today so I couldn’t take a picture that does the beads justice. Believe me, they are gorgeous turquoise – there are 38 10mm teardrop shaped beads. The first thing I am making with them when I get home is some earrings! The wood beads are robles wood and there’s 37 10mm beads on this strand. The bottom picture is of the supplies I wanted so I can try my hand at making a beaded bead. My friend Cristi at 2ifbysea send me some directions that she uses. The only problem was they didn’t have the size 15 seed beads so I bought 11. I hope it’s not too big. Oh well, at least I’m going to try! My wonderful son went to the bead store with me, so I bought him a little pirate bead. I’ll put it on a cellphone strap for him, or something like that. Girls just got up (12 noon) so maybe we’ll go for a walk down to the Crowne Plaza gift shop that’s just down the beach from us. Have a good day!