I have always been fascinated with beads.  A friend of mine and I went through the ‘beading phase’ of crafting a few years ago making bracelets and necklaces and spending hours in bead shops searching through all the colors and styles of beads.  We even took a class at our local bead shop.  I would scour Ebay for ‘bulk beads’ at really good prices and ended up with quite a stash.  Then I discovered that you could knit with beads and made a few bracelets.  I gave them all away, but this picture to the right shows you what they looked like.  This isn’t my creation, but is a good example.

I found this tutorial on the ‘How Did You Make This’ blog and pinned it to my ‘All Manner of Crafts’ board. The little star trio just intrigued me.  I clicked through to the tutorial to find that it was quite simple.  I dug out my beading supplies (seed beads, thread, beading needle) and followed the lesson to the letter.  It really was easy, but you need to have the patience of Job when you’re working with seed beads.  They are super small, look really cool, but like to skip and dance all over the surface you’re working on.  I imagine if I was a professional at this, I would own some sort of gadget that would eliminate this dilemma, but I don’t so I just worked very carefully and slowly.

I had a few color choices, but I settled on a variegated green set of beads.  The instructions were excellent and the pictures in the tutorial were very helpful.

While the tutorial configured the stars for jewelry, I think I might use mine as decoration on a gift card or some sort of paper craft.  Not sure yet, but when I decide, I will post a picture.

I wondered if there were any other patterns (say a dog paw or bone) available online, so I googled ‘bead patterns’ and was introduced to entirely new world.  There is a history to beading that I was unfamiliar with as well as an entire language.  I have just scratched the surface and already I can see why I am fascinated by beads. 

“Hey mom – figure out a dog paw pattern, then make it into a collar for me.  Oh and can you make it match my blue eye?”