Its been about a dozen years or so that I first beaded this little Santa pattern, only to end up making so many of them that I have the pattern committed to memory. Where it came from originally, I don’t recall, but its got potential to be re-created in so many different ways. Expanding on patterns is a really versatile way to “get your moneys worth”!This technique will work on most patterns… so consider yourself empowered to expand your design potential by simply changing it up! 
 
The original Santa
This first version of the Santa was meant to be a Christmas ornament. You made a few of them and then connected them at the top to hang around a round Christmas ball. But to me it looked more like it should be a fringed amulet bag style where it’s the same pattern on both sides, but stuffed with a little batting to make it puffed. Then a simple short strap at the top allowed it to be hung from the tree. A little fringe across the bottom with red and green beads made it adorable.
 
Change it up! 
To make this into a bracelet, you just need to repeat the pattern. Instead of beading it in brick stitch, turn it on its side and it instantly becomes peyote stitch. Then you could put some cool borders on there, like stripes or solid color to separate the Santa’s. If you’re more of a visual person, you can use peyote graph paper to color it out, or if you’re computer savvy then you can do it on a program like MicroSoft Publisher (what I used) or Word or another one similar to those. So your pattern would look something like this one. I made simple stripes in red and white to resemble a candy cane. If you wove this bracelet you could finish off the edges in a red and green picot lace and it would be so cute! But what about earrings to match?
 
Making a silhouette
By eliminating the blue color on the original Santa you end up with a shapely little face. It can be beaded best in brick stitch by beginning with the widest row and then working out and decreasing to the top and bottom edge. When you get to the top of the hat, its cute to come out of one of the top red beads, put on 7 white beads and then go down into the other red bead. This makes a little loop that you can hang from an ear wire to make an earring, or you can use it as a charm to hang from other things. 
 
Taking it a bit farther…
Now lets take that cute face and make it a little more 3-dimensional. If you trim down the pattern even a bit more to eliminate the beard, you’ll have chance to re-create a beard out of loops of beads and Santa will look practically real! (ha! ha!  Or… ho! ho!) You can weave the pattern in brick stitch first the same way the other version of the face was done, then make sure you’re exiting out of the first peach colored bead of the face. Then you just pick up 7 white beads and pass the needle back up through the same peach colored bead. Then as you move down the beard, make each strand a couple of beads longer until you get to the chin, and then make each loop a couple of beads shorter until you finish. Then you’ll have a loopy-beard Santa with a more 3-dimensional face.
 
Veering off the ‘rules path’
Once you have a pattern you can pretty much do what you wish with beading it. There are no real rules that say you have to bead it as it was first designed. Also, if you’re using graph paper then you can map out your own designs to bead. There are even bead designer programs out there if you’re really serious about it. At some point I’ll be sharing some patterns with you that I have designed. Stay tuned after the holiday for them! 
 
Happy beading and however you decide to bead up your little Santa, be prepared for everyone to put him on their holiday wish list!!
 
“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.” ~Charles Dickens