I am beyond thrilled to finally be able to publish information about this project that I’ve been working on (or trying to work on) for over a year.
I promised you guys Beginner Course video series with practice flower patterns, and I finally get to announce it! My Learn French Beading: Beginner Course is starting at the end of the month.
This course was originally going to be just on YouTube with a PDF to accompany it. But then, lots of people asked me if I’d do a book too. So… there’s a book too. The course will be best used when the book and video course are used together, but you can work through the techniques and practice patterns in the course with just the videos.
But that’s not all! I also realized, that since the course is geared toward beginners that they might not have much experience buying materials, so I thought… hey maybe I should do kits? So yes. There will be kits for each of the flowers as well.
I am handing you all this information almost a month in advance because I’m starting pre-orders for both the book and the kits to prepare for when the videos are released. I also have a bundle with a full set of the kits + the book. Visit my shop to place your pre-orders! The pre-order window will close on the 10th for the book and bundle, and the 15th for the kits.
The book will be available on Amazon. I’m going to hit publish on Feb 29th, but it might take a day or two to show up there, especially overseas. I do not have a way to do a pre-order on Amazon, so if you’re planning to order from Amazon instead of from me, then watch for an announcement here or on my social media pages for when it’s up there. (It will also be on Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, Amazon.fr, Amazon.de, Amazon.jp, Amazon.it, Amazon.es, and a few others)
Now let’s take a little peek at what the course includes.
This is my proof copy of the book! I’ve just approved this manuscript. Special thanks to Suzanne Steffenson who helped me to edit this whole book! She’s a life saver. (The proof copy has a banner across the cover so I can’t resell it. The final version will not have that banner!)
And the second picture is the arrangement I made for the course.
Part 1 – Getting Started
Part 1 of the book contains in-depth information on the tools and materials needed to make French Beaded Flowers. There is one video for this section of the course which will teach how to string beads onto the wire both from a hank and using a bead spinner.
Par 2 – Technique Guide
Part 2 of the series consists of six lessons covering all of what I consider to be the Beginner Level or Base techniques. I’ve already published picture tutorials for these on my website, but now there are videos as well. I do like to teach techniques separately. With some of these techniques, there’s much more that I can teach you than what I can cover in one flower. I really wanted to create a one-stop reference for the techniques so you don’t have to sift through flower patterns to find the technique info you need.
Here are the techniques included in this course:
- Continuous Loops
- Continuous Crossover Loops
- Continuous Wraparound Loops
- Fringe
- Basic Frame
- Lacing
The book contains written and picture tutorials for these techniques. I do feel like the book will be more helpful in learning French Beading terms and how to read patterns. However, the videos on YouTube will be great for seeing the techniques in action. If you have either the PDF or print versions of the book you will have early access to the entire video library. If you don’t, then you will have to wait for the videos until they are published publicly on YouTube.
Part 3 – Practice Flower Patterns
Part 3 of the Beginner Course contains four separate wildflower patterns to help practice the techniques learned in Part 2. Just like the techniques, there are both written/picture versions of the pattern and videos with full flower demonstrations.
You will learn a brand new Lavender design (not the same as my old one), Dame’s Rocket, Wild Clematis, and Black-Eyed Susan.
Just like the Technique lessons in Part 2, the book will be more helpful in practicing reading patterns. But you can make the flowers without the book because my videos are complete demos.
As I mentioned above, I’ll be taking pre-orders for these kits. I’ve not done full kits before, so I’m not sure how high of a demand there will be. I was worried that maybe I wouldn’t prepare enough, or perhaps too many. So we’ll do pre-orders instead! Though I am capping it at 10 total kits per flower for the pre-order because I don’t think it would be physically possible for me to make more in time for course publication. Depending on how well they sell, they may become a permanent item in my shop.
Part 4 – Arranging Beaded Flowers
The last part of the course will walk you through how to make the flowers in Part 3 into an arrangement or bouquet. However, this part is only in the book/PDF! I’m not a professional florist, by any means, but I want to pass along the things I’ve learned. In the book I discuss my flower and bead selections, and then show how to arrange the flowers made in Part 3. I will also show how to make the flowers into a bouquet, using the same assembly method I used for some of the wedding bouquets I’ve made.
Other Updates
Alrighty, got more stuff to talk about. Firstly, my One-A-Day project from last year.
I have all of the pieces made, but I haven’t had time to put it together yet! 🙁 I know from my experience with my color wheel wreath that it’s going to take 6-8 hours to assemble this wreath. And I just don’t have that much time right now. Not even broken up. I’ve been spending it all trying to get Beginner Course ready to launch, and getting ready to move. And preparing for a presentation on French Beading for the New England Bead Society in a few weeks. More on that in a sec.
Anyways, here are some pics of the last of the finished pieces. If you’d like to see all my pictures for this project, you can see them in my Portfolio. I can’t exactly remember my last update on this project… but I think I left off here with pictures? I’ve made Eucalyptus (a small variety), a couple white dwarf Amaryllis flowers, and a big bow. My bow actually has more loops than shown here, but I’m too short on time to worry about editing the new picture.
Well, while we’re on the subject… I’ve decided not to do a one-a-day project this year. It was really hard to do last year, didn’t help that I picked a harder project. I need something less this year, so not a one-a-day. But I’m going to attempt a Flower of the Month challenge. I did something similar many years ago. But this time I’m going to follow the Birth Flowers. So January was Carnation. Naturally, it’s been too hectic so I didn’t get to finish. But to prove I at least worked on it last month, here’s a picture… the only time I had to spare was in my car while waiting for my kids to get out of school. Though some days I was editing videos there instead. It’s only about 30 minutes of wait time, but I had to squeeze in every minute I could. So, technically failed my first month challenge, but I’ll catch up. I am actually almost done with them. And I started the pattern months ago when I made the first set of those striped ones.
February’s birth flower is Primrose… I think I’ll make just a small pot… or switch to violets… which is the other birth flower for February. Yeah I probably will.
Some of you may remember that my family moved last year. We sold our home and built a new one. But then we sold our old house too soon, and our new house was majorly delayed. We bounced around from one rental to the next (with 3 kids) for a few months before our realtor took pity on us and let us stay in one of her rentals. I got really sick of moving constantly, so we sure are grateful for her generosity. We finally get to move into our house in just a few days! Naturally, everyone has a stomach bug. Yay…
Last year just really… well I kind of wish I could just throw it in the trashcan and forget it ever happened. Seems like the harder I tried, the more things went wrong. Like the universe really wanted to knock me down a few pegs, and it did. But I’m not going to stay down. 2020 better cooperate, because I’ve got some catching up to do!
Finally, on February 19th I am doing a presentation on French Beading for the New England Bead Society! That weekend I’ll be assisting them with a workshop they are doing with some of my free beginner patterns, which I did give them permission to use. I’m making the kits for that workshop (nearly done with those), and some extra kits for some of my other patterns as well. Some of which are probably going to be added to my shop once I get some time to breathe.
I hope you all have been well! If you have any questions, please do contact me.
Happy Beading!
Lauren Harpster