I have a new website that I've created to list all the flowers I make, and also to list everything to do with hair accessories.
French beaded flower
The new site is called Flower Cove, and it is a Weebly site instead of Freewebs, I may also eventually move all of Craft Cove over to Weebly as well. With Weebly I can use as many pages as I want, but with Freewebs I only have a limited number.
black fascinator
hair flower
beaded carnation
fascinator
Flower Cove has hair flowers, hair fascinators, hair vines, and other hair accessories, as well as French beading , Victorian beading , and other types of beaded flower stems, bouquets, etc.
Not everything in Flower Cove is beaded. I have all sorts of fabric and ribbon flowers as well as paper flowers and quilling. For those who don't know what quilling is, quilling is the art of creating items with paper, most commonly very thin strips are curled into shapes, then glued into designs.
Of the fabric flowers, there are folded flowers, flame singed flowers, rolled flowers, and many more. These are then made into hair accessories or other things.
Cut 50 – 60 cm of the wire. Thread on 10 beads (4 for first row, and 6 for second row).
Take one end of the wire and go back through 6 beads from the opposite end of the wire, keeping them centred as much as possible.
Form a circle, by bending the beaded wire backwards, and pulling the wires taut. Try not to leave any space in the wire.
Bend both ends of wire to face past the second row.
Thread the beads for the 3rd row (10 beads) onto either wire end, pass the other end of the wire through all 10 beads. Bend as necessary, and pull taut.
Step 2:
Continue in this fashion, starting from the bottom of the chart. Follow the number of beads per row, (You’ve done the first 3 rows) and bend and pull taut at the end of each row. (Don’t worry too much about the shape looking strange at this stage, it will be shaped properly later.)
After the last row, you should have an almost bowl type shape. If not, smooth it all out, and arrange the rows evenly to create the bowl shape.
Twist both wire ends together. You’ve made your first petal.
Repeat this exactly the same 4 more times to create 5 petals.
Twist all 5 petals wires together.
Adding the centre:
Cut off approximately 20 cm of wire, thread the bead towards the centre, bend it in half.
Now just place it on top of the petal group, with one end of the wire between 2 petals on one side of the flower and the other between 2 petals on the opposite side.
Twist the wires on top of the other wires.
If you want a long stem, add a stem wire next to the twisted wires, and wrap around all stems with 32 gauge wire for a couple of centimetres. If you only want a very short stem, the wires all twisted together here should be fine.
The stem now needs to be covered in floral tape.
To use the tape, you need to stretch the first bit of it to activate the stickiness. Carefully wrap it very close to the flower part of the stem, stretch it down at an angle, and twist the stem until you reach the bottom, tear it off, and smooth it out.
Step 3:
Making the LEAF
Just make one leaf by following the leaf pattern as you did with the petal pattern. Twist the wires all the way down. Use floral tape, as you did before, but just for a couple of centimetres.
For this month I'm having my sale at my Shop Handmade store.
There are 9 items listed and they are all 10% off. There's a bit of everything listed including, chainmail, wirework, beadweaving, and a beaded rose bud.
I just thought I'd mention a bit about the making and care of beaded flowers
Beaded flowers are often made with either the French Beaded method OR the Victorian Beaded Method.
Both of these methods require hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of tiny seed beads that are threaded onto wire.
They are then bent, twisted, and shaped into the individual parts of the flower. Then the parts are joined together and the stems taped with floral tape to create all sorts of different flowers.
To clean your beaded flowers:
The simplest and safest ways are a feather duster or compressed air.
If the flowers need more than that, you can use a damp cloth to lightly rub the beads.
If they need a more serious clean, you can dip the flower heads in warm soapy water, then rinse thoroughly. Every bit of moisture must be removed with a hair dyer on the lowest setting, or dried thoroughly in fresh air. Even a tiny bit of moisture left can cause it to rust.
With reasonable care your flowers should last a VERY long time, although some of the colours may fade with time.
I thought I would show the difference between French Beading and Victorian Beading.
I always thought they were the same thing, but I've since discovered I was wrong.
I made similar flowers using the 2 different methods to show the difference. I'll probably make some tutorials soon.
Victorian beaded flower
Victorian Beading is made similar to ladder stitch and has similarities to Right Angle Weave. Is is made with horizontal lines of beads and both ends of the wire go through the whole row. There are more or less beads added to each row, to create the shape of the petal. This method can also be used to make the 3D animals that I showed in a previous post. They were made by every alternate row being behind the other, in a zigzag pattern to create the back and front.
Victorian beaded rose
Victorian beaded rosebud
Victorian beaded daffodil
Victorian Beading is also know as English or Continental Beading.
Victorian beaded flower
French Beadingis done with rows of beads that are twisted onto a separate section of wire at the top, then the row of beads is passed down the other side, and to another section at the bottom, where it is twisted around again and then goes back to the top. This is shown in the lillium flower.
Another way of doing it is to twist a long row of beads together at the ends, shown in the rounded petal flowers.
French beaded rose
French beaded rosebud
French beaded flower
With French Beading all the beads are thread onto the wire before beginning, and the wire is left on the spool and not cut till the end.
