Hiya beady friends! Yep, I’m teaching another class, but this one is a little different from my last one because it will only be happening in the Seed Beads and More Facebook group. The class is free, but only during September, and only for members of the Facebook Group.

I have designed two new French Beaded Succulents: Aeonium and String of Bananas. These designs are somewhat beginner-friendly in that most of the techniques are Beginner level: Continuous Loops, Continuous Wraparound Loops, Basic Frame, and Lacing. There is one Intermediate technique: Bottom Wire Extensions. There’s some weird molding and shaping that we will do with the bananas, but the trickiest part for a beginner will be the number of components and assembly.

The green Aeonium was the first sample I made. I made that one based off a photo that didn’t have a variety name, but I changed where the brown markings are to simplify the design anyways. The red one is based off a variety called Medusa, and the turquoise one is more of a fantasy succulent. I have seen succulents with that coloring and just wanted to play with it. I don’t know if aeonium actually come that way.

Required Notice: The two paragraphs below contain affiliate links. I do receive a small portion of the sales if you purchase after clicking my links, at not extra cost to you. But I am a conscientious affiliate link-poster. I only link to products that I use and enjoy.

I’ve had the quirky head with legs planter and the bunny planter for a long time. The tall head one is new, but it’s been on my wish list for a long time. Some women buy shoes or handbags (which is perfectly fine, I won’t judge) but my equivalent is vases and planters. And I do like the weird ones. I’ve got more that are just waiting for the right projects.

The green one in the bunny planter is probably going to move to another arrangement… eventually. I have a really cute mushroom planter that I just bought that I wanted to put succulents in for this class. But when I went to pot it, I felt like it needed more to fill it out than just the aeonium and string of bananas, which is the only reason I had to use the bunny planter for the class samples. So I’m hoping I’ll have time to add a couple more succulents in there sometime “soon” so I can re-pot it.

How to Participate

1 – Join the Seed Beads and More Facebook group.
This class will be exclusive to that group. They only admit new members during the first few days of a new month. That time has already passed for August, but you can still request to join now and wait a bit to be admitted. Make sure you follow all of their instructions for gaining membership. There is a questionnaire to fill out (don’t sound like a robot in your answers) and you will need to send them an email (the address is in the questionnaire). It won’t hurt to let them know I sent you. Then in early September you should be admitted.

2 – Download the Materials List and order your supplies.
The materials list is in the group Files of the Seed Beads and More group, so if you are already a member there you can head on over and grab that PDF from the group. For those of you who have requested to join and have to wait until September… you can download the materials list here. That way you can still order your supplies and have them in time for the first day of class.

3 – Show up in the Seed Beads and More group in September.
There won’t be any emails going out, or notifications. So you will need to remember to come to the group and locate my posts. They always make a featured post that’s pinned to the top of the group that has links to each of the individual class posts. The class will only be available through the month of September. Videos cannot be saved, but the PDFs can be.

If you are unable to join in during September, the class and PDF will be available to purchase in October.

French Beaded Anemone Pattern

I actually published this last month in July as part of my goal to publish a new pattern every month this year. But between teaching my Asiatic Lily class, prepping my September class, getting three kids ready to start school (tomorrow), preparing for two birthdays, and a family camping trip… I didn’t have time to get a blog post made up for it. I was hoping to get a free tutorial up for a small project to include in that blog post. I might still get that up later when I publish my August pattern in a couple weeks, so watch for that later. But for now… let’s talk about the Anemones.

6 years ago I had a little baby girl, and I wanted to make a little basket of beaded flowers to decorate her nursery. It was going to be a project that would hang up on the wall so it would be out of reach of the tiny fingers. I was going to do white lilies, lavender anemones, pink and peach roses or ranunculus, and blue hydrangea… and either ferns or maidenhair ferns. And I started making samples way back in 2018.

These samples are so old they have my old business name/logo on them.

No, I’m not about to update and say I finally finished this project… because I haven’t! I started planning the colors and picked out the beads for this before she was even born. She’s 6 1/2 now. Maybe I’ll have it done by the time she leaves the nest. Or when I have grandbabies.

This wasn’t the first time I’d made Anemones, though. The first time was actually for the first wedding bouquet I ever made. Peonies, dahlias, astilbe, anemone, lavender, billy balls, and ruffled roses. I would pay good money to be able to take this bouquet apart and re-arrange it. But we bead and we learn. This anemone was the first rendition. It evolved a little more with the lavender ones above. And, it has evolved even more now.

Okay. So. I was going to put my Anemone design in my next book in a specific project, which shall remain nameless and undescribed… for reasons. But then I went to my mom’s house earlier this summer and I saw a flower there that I loved even more that I felt needed to be in the project instead. And there’s just not room for both because the printing fee is taken out of each sale, and the more pages there are the more the printing fee is… and therefore the more pages there are, the more I have to charge for the book. And it would be a little silly to include both in the project because they have a similar shape and size…. Anyways, that flower, which shall remain nameless, made my little bead artist heart feel all sparkly. So the whole project changed… again. If anyone is wondering why this particular book is taking so dang long, it’s partially because I keep having better ideas that I get emotionally attached to. And this one is better, I promise. You’ll see when I can finally share!

But I’d already done the Anemone pattern… so… I published it last month instead! Woohoo!

The PDF can be purchased in my shop. The main pattern instructions show the lavender ones, but the other shading patterns are also included. I can’t decide whether I like white and pink one or the burgundy one the best. That little halo of pink was time-consuming, but I just love the effect. And I chose the colors for the burgundy one from an anemone variety called “Bordeaux.” Purple and burgundy. I work with a lot of lighter “sweet” colors, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to work in a more bold color scheme. I specifically chose these two alternate shading patterns because they are coloring patterns that I see in lots of different anemone varieties – just with different colors. You could use the bordeaux shading pattern to make red petals with white markings at the base, or pink petals with a peach base. Or you could use the white/pink shading pattern to make a pink flower with a red halo. I am also really fond of the leaves. Those were so much fun to design and make so they would look like the shapes I was seeing in natural anemones. I probably spent more time designing the leaves than the petals.

Other Updates

My kids are starting school tomorrow. And all three of them will be in full-day school. Last year my littlest was in half-day kindergarten, and while that did give me a couple extra hours to work, it was still never enough to finish as much as I was hoping. But, now I will have about six hours every day to myself (and the dog). And I’ve got some serious plans.

Asiatic Lily Video Class + PDF: I’m adding more content to my French Beaded Asiatic Lily class before I publish the full class. I was hoping to get those done during July so I could publish the class at the beginning of August. But life had other plans and I had to choose a different priority. Once I’ve got those extra pieces done, that class and PDF will be available to purchase in my shop.

August Pattern Sneak Peek: I’m working on a new pattern that will be published by the end of the month as part of my year-long goal to publish a new pattern every month. For August I have chosen to finish my Dendrobium Orchid pattern. I started this one a couple years ago, and even have most of the PDF finished. It’s just been sitting in a box on my “unfinished projects” shelf waiting for me to add a couple more shading patterns and assemble the dang thing.

So, there’s two things to look forward to next time (hopefully three if I can also finish the other small tutorial I wanted to do last month).

Before I go, I just wanted to thank everyone who purchased my Butterfly pattern in the last couple months. I have been astounded as to how popular that pattern was. I’d gotten a few messages about that pattern, which is why I chose to publish that one. But I almost always get several messages about publishing a particular flower I’ve shared a photo of, so I was not expecting that many people to want it. Blown away. Thank you all so much for helping me support my little family!

Happy Beading!
– Lauren Harpster