The Beading Gem

It's almost Easter so here is a fine collection of bunny tutorials and patterns to inspire. I've chosen not just the jewelry ones but delightful craft DIYs which are on the small side. You can use some of them as keychain charms or as ornaments. The crochet amigurumi ones can be used as challenges to make them really small enough to be jewelry charms. You game?

Singaporean Helena Tang-Lim is a wonderful beadwork designer whose work I have featured before. The designs you see on maneklady are absolutely gorgeous. 

Beading enthusiasts who like to bead just about anything will appreciate these adorable beaded basket tutorials. Larger ones like the beaded basket tutorial by IceniBeadDesign can be used for Eater eggs or somewhere to store trinkets.  Unique handmade home decor, right?

Small ones like this cutie from Alesia of BeadifulNights can be used as doll accessories or even to hold some candy treats!

I was looking for inspirational beaded cross tutorials when I stumbled upon Cathy Andrews work. Her creations on AndreaCatherineJewel are inspired by the designs from yesteryear - especially the Victorian era.

But Cathy doesn't just stick with that era. I particularly loved her Art Deco and Edwardian inspired jewelry tutorials.   They are all lush and many ooze with her favorite components - Swarovski pearls and crystals!

Wonderland Ukraine is a unique craft supplier.  Anton Gladkov comes from a family of crafters so he just had to get creative himself.   I wrote about his gorgeous laser cut and engraved wood bead organizers before.

This time I received one of their many Easter beaded cross stitch wood kits to review. One lucky giveaway winner will also receive one kit from any of their huge collection of beaded cross stitch wood kits, not just the Easter ones.

British beader Susannah Thomson's wonderful geometric inspired bangle design in her shop ZannahMakes  really caught my eye. This lovely engaging tutorial can be done with different color combinations.

I also love her Geo baubles. She has designs for different seasons - Christmas, Halloween and Easter. Her Add-On PDFs help others with different color palettes. Susannah says her Geo patterns are developed from Contemporary Geometric Beadwork research and the work of JayDee (Joy Davison).

Do you decorate Easter eggs?  Well, you can "paint" with beads!  Check out this collection of 5 wonderful beaded Easter egg tutorials.

First up is Helena Tang-Lim's beautiful Ode to Faberge beaded egg  tutorial.  She is known as ManekLady or "bead lady".  I have featured her fantastic work before.

Beaded crosses can be surprisingly varied in style from modern to classic designs.  These wonderful beadwork artists shows how versatile beading can be.  They have also been inspired by the many Christian cross variants which date back centuries.

One of my favorite beaded jewelry designers, Helena Tang-Lim, of maneklady has a gorgeous crux gemmata inspired cross design shown above. A crux gemmata, Latin for "jeweled cross" is a style typical of early Christian and early Medieval art.

It took me about a second to realize that Helena Tang-Lim was from South East Asia. The giveaway was her shop name maneklady.  Manek means bead in Malay, which is the national language of  Malaysia, where I was born and where I spent my formative years.  Her website is simply called Manek-Manek which is the plural for bead.

Unlike myself, Singaporean Helena is not Peranakan - a descendant of long ago Chinese immigrants, some of whom married local Malay women.  Inspired by the beadwork of Peranakan women (nonya) she began her beading journey in 1995.

Prepare to have your mind blown.  British bead artist designer, Katie Dean, has some pretty amazing beaded box design tutorials in her shop Bead Flowers.  Yes, bead boxes. These are fantastic designs overall but to have them all open up?  Stunning.

I spotted Gina's tutorial a little late for a pre-Christmas post. But as Easter is just round the corner, here it is now! It is a gorgeous design which can be made in any color combination you want....not just reds, greens and golds.  The metallic Toho seed beads (11/0 and 15/0) is what makes this pair look luxurious.

I adore these beaded teardrop crystals which remind me of the Russian Imperial eggs by Faberge.  They can be really glamorous when netted with metallic seed beads.  The beaded tutorial is by Leslie of Seed Bead Bliss.

Italian beader, Sara Spoltore rose to the challenge of making a beaded ankh pendant using cRAW (cubic right angle weave).  She shared the information on how to construct one. She assumes you have learned the cRAW so these instructions are not for the beginner.  She gives the number of beads for each "side" including the rounded portion at the top.  She uses both 15/0 and 11/0 seed beads for the straight sides but had to omit the smaller beads for the curved portion.

We are all familiar with the Faberge eggs - the large Imperial Easter eggs which contained surprises especially commissioned as gifts for for the Russian Romanov royal family. But the legendary master jeweler also made a lot of smaller and less ornate ones including tiny gemstone Easter egg pendants.  I saw a marvelous collection when it exhibited in Montreal a few years ago -  check out the post as I shared  a couple of my pictures of these egg pendants. Also this post Rare Gemstones : Alexandrite and the Last of the Romanovs for some fascinating history on this tragic family.