[Nfb-krafters-korner] French beaded flowers

[Jewel S.]

You're most welcome. I don't think I could ever do French beaded
flowers, but my sister loves it. For her birthday last year, I gave
her a $100 gift certificate to a really good beading supply catalog
(the name slips my mind, but something about Gems), and she bought a
bead stringer (a machine that strings beads for you as you put the
beads in, for storage, or I think you could use it to do the actual
stringing for the project, too), and some real quartz crystal beads
for a wedding commission she did. The commission was amazing. The
bride wanted a bouquet of French beaded flowers, a boutinnaire for the
groom and corsages for her bridemaids. The bouquet was simply amazing,
with real quartzz crystals that shined, real amber stone beads, and
iridescent beads, made into white pearly roses and these little yellow
flowers that I forget the name of. There was also some gorgeous baby's
breath made from frosted blue beads. I looked at the picture, and
couldn't believe that my sister made it...it looked like real flowers!
She doesn't do as many now that she's working as a nanny, but she does
still occassionally. She made me a blue rose pendant (I like the
fantasy flowers, and the blue rose is my favourite) that I wear for
special events, and a potted arrangement of snapdragons (yellow and
orange), pink roses, and little yellow flowers. It is beautiful, but
it needs repair, because it got bent up alot in my last move, and lost
a few leaf tops.

I hope you enjoy trying this out. It's a very old craft (started in
the Victorian times), and is really beautiful. Some of the most famous
French beaded arrangements are found in English castles and fancy
museums. There is a chandelier in a castle, I believe in France, made
quartz crystals and diamond beads...it is covered in all those seed
beads, thosands of them.  My sister saw a picture of it, and says it
is absolutely shocking that someone could do that.

There is also another form of bead work you might be interested in. It
is a cross between French beaded flowers and origami. Making animal
forms out of seed beads can be complicated work, but the effect is
wonderful. I had a turtle made of seed beads that I gave to a friend
for her birthday, and she adored it. I've seen elephants, lions,
monkeys, turtles, and all sorts of other animals. I've also seen
seashells, a sailboat, and a Princess castle made out of seed beads.
It's amazing what people do with wire and beads.

A tip for less expensive work: Don't use the speciality wire from
jewelry catalogs. Get electric wire of the diameter you want. You can
get large amounts of electric wire the size you want in many different
colours, and it will cost a lot less than the jewelry wire. It is the
same kind of wire, but the price is different. You'll have more
variety of colour with electric wire, though, because they do a lot of
colour-coding in electrical working. Get speciality wire if you want
23 karat gold or sterling silver, but otherwise just get electrical
wire.

Good luck, and let us know how it turns out!

~Jewel

On 3/9/10, slery <slerythema at insightbb.com> wrote:
> Jewel,
>
> Thanks for mentioning this. I did a Google search and have found a couple of
> really good descriptive sites. This may be something I try in the near
> future and would be a good alternative to drawing.
>
> Cindy S.
>
>
>
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