French Beading Abbreviations
BF, CL, CCL, BR…. While working with French Beading patterns, you will often come across techniques, shapes, and other parts of a pattern that have been abbreviated. I talked a little bit about these in my Learn French Beading: Beginner…
How to Work with Multiple Bead Colors in French Beading
Bear with me, you guys, this is a long post with a lot of information. We’re going to take a look at the complex issue of shading patterns in French Beading. I’m only going to cover the basics here. We’ll…
Comparing different types of embroidery floss for stem wrapping
I’ve just published a tutorial for wrapping your French Beaded Flower stems with floss. I’ve done a tutorial on this on my previous Lauren’s Creations website, but finally found the time to update it here. There is also more and…
Can You Use Two-Hole Beads for French Beaded Flowers?
Hello there my beady friends. I’m doing a quick little blog post today about a weird French Beading experiment I did recently. This isn’t a full blown, fully studied and tested idea where I can tell you exactly what to…
Let’s Talk About Bead Spinners (and a DIY bead spinner tutorial)
Many types of Bead Spinners One of the questions I am asked frequently is about Bead Spinners. Specifically, which ones are the best and what I recommend, so I figured I should just go ahead and do a full blog…
On Making Miniatures
Introduction Most beaded flower artist tend to make their flowers life-size, so I thought having a “tips” post on making miniature sized flowers would be fun and different. However, I haven’t made very many miniatures myself. Most of my work…
A Few Teasers and a Mini Tip!
I’ve been quiet on purpose this time. The last couple of months I’ve been working on a rather large project, probably one of the largest things I’ve ever made (if measuring by mass) but I can’t post pictures here yet…
An Introduction on Designing French Beaded Flowers
One of my most favorite parts of French Beading is the design work, making a brand new flower from scratch. The whole process excites me. For me, at least, if it’s not challenging, then it’s not fun. So, when…