A Couple of Beading Projects

I recently discovered that I love beading.  It's an inexpensive craft with such amazing results.

One of the little girls I watch loves any and all types of hair accessories, so I thought I would make her some clips for her birthday last week.  I got the tutorial for the beaded flowers from Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Crafts which I got for Christmas last year.

Start by making each petal.  I used the template for the Forget-Me-Not flower.

Make 4 to 6 petals, add a white bead in the middle and you're done!  Okay, now repeat 9 more times.

I started with this packet of clips I got at Target (which just so happened to be the exact same colors as the beads I already had - perfect!).

Attaching them was the hard part.  I ended up cutting all the excess wire off of all the petals and hot gluing them individually.  They're still on there a week later, so I guess it was a success!  I thought this would be a fun way to jazz up some fairly boring clips for a 3-year-old.  What do you think?

Now on to the next project.  If you remember, I got some beads at a garage sale last weekend, so you know I had to go to Michael's and get supplies to make a necklace.

Supplies:

Beads

Crimp beads

Transite

Jump rings

Lobster clips

Of course, I had to have a helper.  She didn't so much as help as chase the beads around the living room floor and eat the plastic baggies they came in.  Thanks anyway Maggie!

And the finished product!  Okay, I know this wasn't really a tutorial, but how much easier could it get?  Find a pattern that works for you and keep stringing until you reach the desired necklace length.  I really like it but I think I might add a 3rd shorter strand with a single type of bead.

Ciao!

(Did I really just say ciao?  I never say that, but I couldn't think of a way to end this blog post.  Oh well, might as well say bye in as many other languages as I know...)

Hasta luego!

Auf widersehen!

Au revoir!

Okay, that's it.  Happy Thursday!