Hey bead friends! In December I will be teaching a new variation of my French Beaded Holly design, which I am calling “Jolly Holly”. I’ve added some fun filigree style leaves! The class will be a free bead-along in the Learn How to Make French Beaded Flowers Facebook group, as well as here on my website in the “Video Classes” page. To participate you will need to be a member of the Facebook group, or you will need an account on my website so you can enroll in the class here.

Enrollment for the class on my website is open now and ends December 1st. The class will start December 1st, and the last day to access class materials here or in the Facebook group is December 31st.

Let me quickly remind everyone how the bead-alongs work.

• The bead-alongs are free classes that some designers put on out of generosity to our beading community. Most of the designs offered for bead-alongs are normally sold for income.

• Most of the time, the designs featured in the bead-along are available only for the month of the class. Afterwards they are removed either from the group or from my website. At that point, they are no longer free. You must download all PDFs and watch all videos during the month that they are offered. Videos are not downloadable or save-able, but you may keep the PDFs. You just can’t share it with anyone, even other members of the group. If you lose your copy of the PDF, or want extended access to class videos after the bead-along is over, you will need to purchase either the PDF or the Video Class. To keep it absolutely fair to both the designer and all members, there are no exceptions made for any reason.

• The instructor may advertise their shop or other offerings and social media sites during their class. Free advertising during their class is the kick-back that teachers receive for volunteering to teach. If you are participating in the group, this means you will see advertisement posts in the group feed. If you are participating via my website, this means you will receive emails with announcements when the next lesson is available, with included advertisements.

• Purchasing from designers’ shops during their class is not required, but it’s always a nice way to thank them for donating their design and time in teaching and answering questions.

• For bead-alongs on my website, enrollment ends the first day of class. At that point, no one else will be able to enroll. So enroll early, download the materials list, order your supplies, and wait for class to start. Enrollment on my website will require an account on my website. Without that login, there’s no way to get back into the class or save your progress. You can always delete your account after the class if you like.

The Jolly Holly variation above is only one of several fun styles of French Beaded Holly that I’ve been working on. I had a burst of inspiration for lots of ways to make filigree style leaves, and decided that I needed to try and teach all of them. Each version uses a different combination of French Beading techniques to create delicate, lacy leaves. I’ll share a photo of my gold branch for now, with the others to come later when I release the full series.

I’m only teaching the green one at the top of this post during the December bead-along as a sampling. The others will only be available in the paid version of the full-length class. I’m planning on a December 1st release of the full class as well, so watch for another update when that is published.

We were originally going to have an entirely different bead-along for December. I made samples months ago of a new ornament design. But while I was working on a few more samples and the PDF, I really felt like I needed to switch gears and do something different. That’s when the filigree’d holly inspiration hit me. So I will likely be releasing the new ornament design soon as well.

Happy beading! I hope to see lots of fun French Beaded Holly next month!
– Lauren Harpster