Designing a Holiday Beaded Bracelet Pattern: Get a Jump on the Season!
As we slide with ease from summer into the glorious fall season, we get so enamored in the colors and scents of autumn that its only with a jolt into reality that we realize that the holidays are right around the corner! If you haven’t made your list and checked it twice yet, then chop! chop! The time is now. Here’s some ideas on designing your own jewelry to give as gifts this year.

Get inspired
To get some creative juices flowing, borrow from what you know. When I sit down to put together something new, I sometimes like to begin by combining elements from my favorite designs. Here’s an example: For this holiday, I’d like to make something that is like a wreath on the wrist. Something that has flavor of garland, but also has a bit of color. I love leaves, vines, chutes, flowers and the like, so I’m going to pick one of them. 

A leaf design
This particular leaf design looks good just about anywhere. Many years ago, a very talented beader named Paula Parmenter was beading dream catchers. And not just any… they were spectacular seed beaded creations that were dripping with seed bead flora and fauna.  Paula used this leaf zillions of times in her beadwork and I think in the process it got engraved on the inside of my forehead forever. I love it and use it a lot. Just by changing up the colors or bead sizes you can get quite a diverse look. 

A berry
I’m an admirer of beaded beads, of the seed bead kind, making many over the years in all kinds of techniques. I’d like to make one to look like a berry, but still try to keep it uncomplicated. So I’m going to create this one around a bracelet I saw that was designed by Stephanie Eddy. Its full of glass and seed beaded leaves, and then its got these sweet little beaded berries that look like raspberries. I’m going to do my own variation on this berry and simplify it by making pretty seed beads stripes on an already pretty bead. I’m going to change the colors of the seed beads that stripe across the berry to go from dark to light and then to dark again, giving off an illusion of depth. 

Texture texture texture
Somehow it needs a little something other than seed beads, so I’m going to add a couple of styles of glass beads in there. It will give it more texture and the bracelet will be more full. These are sort of like little fringes, but they’re only one bead big. These beads are going to stay in a similar color pallet as the seed beads so they don’t take away from the color in the berry.

How to put it together? 
This is how I did it: Not wanting to use a clasp, I made a small seed bead loop at the end of my Fireline. This loop has to be big enough to pass through one of the berry beads, which is approximately 12 mm. Tie the loop in a knot and seal the knot with glue or clear fingernail polish. Now add 4 seed beads in size 11.0, then repeat this pattern… 1 bead in 12 mm, 8 seed beads in size 11.0. You’ll repeat that until the bracelet is approximately the length you want it to be, which is about 8 or so beads long. When you put on the last berry bead, put a single seed bead on the needle and pass the needle back down the berry bead. Now you’re going to add a leaf and a couple of fringe beads. When you come to the next berry bead, add on enough size 14.0 beads to go from one hole to the other, and then pass your needle through the berry bead again. Keep making these seed bead stripes on the berry bead until you have as many as you wish. Now repeat, leaf, fringes, berry bead, leaf fringes, berry bead… and so on until you get to the end of the bracelet.  Whew! Done! 

Changing it up
This design looks beautiful in a bracelet or necklace, and can look different when you change up the colors. My versions are in a holiday olive and opaque ivory, an elegant bronze with a cran-berry, and light transparent spring version with pastels and brighter greens. If you chose to not make it look like the garden variety and used beads that were funky or colors that were off beat, you could get a whole new animal.

Giving gifts
What a pretty gift to give to someone who loves and appreciates your hand crafted work. And although this looks complicated, it only took me one evening after my kids were in bed at 8pm to make one (Approximately 2 hours.) Want to waltz away in your own direction with ideas? Just look at beadwork that you admire, and let it transform together in your head into a new design. Those ideas are like puzzle pieces that will fit together in so many ways. And the good news is… you have time! This is only the beginning of November. So bead away and you’ll be done in no time!

“The duty of an artist is to continually astonish.”  Oscar Wilde