Creating Fabric Beads: Material Mondays

 

Creating Fabric Beads: A Sustainable and Creative Project

Ever wished you could transform your leftover fabric scraps into something beautiful and useful? Look no further than fabric beads! They are surprisingly easy to make and offer a fantastic way to recycle unwanted materials, contributing to a more sustainable lifestyle.

Scraps into Treasure:

This project starts with a simple base, like a recycled plastic tube, or check if you have any plastic drinking straws in one of those draws in the kitchen. They offer a sturdy core for your fabric bead. Wrapping thin strips of fabric around the tube with glue or stitching creates the foundation of your bead.


Working with Embellishments

Here's where you can go to town in your art supplies! Grab those forgotten seed beads, ribbons, and any other embellishments you have lying around. Each bead becomes a canvas, waiting to be shaped with contrasting threads, seed beads, or even bits of wool, the possibilities are endless!

Benefits of Creating your Beads:

• Creating fabric beads offers more than just artistic satisfaction. It's a fantastic way to:Reduce waste: By repurposing scraps, you give new life to materials that might otherwise end up in landfills.
• Develop crafting skills: Learn basic sewing and beading techniques, perfect for future projects.
• Enjoy a mindful activity: The repetitive nature of beading can be quite therapeutic, offering a moment of calm.
• Create unique pieces: With endless combinations of fabrics and embellishments, every bead is a one-of-a-kind treasure.

Getting Started: Check out the video to see how I created them.  Here are some of the supplies that you will need.

• Fabric scraps: Any fabric will do, from cotton to silk.
• Embellishments: Beads, buttons, yarn, ribbons, the possibilities are endless!
• Needle and thread: For stitching the fabric and securing embellishments.
• Glue gun (optional): Offers a quicker alternative to stitching for some steps.
• Recycled base: Plastic tubes, paper or plastic straws

Your finished fabric beads can be used in countless ways stringing them together to create necklaces, bracelets, or earrings.  You can also use them as embellishments and sew them onto clothing, bags, or pillows for a unique and personalized touch.

Creating fabric beads is a fun, sustainable, and rewarding activity, it is a great time to express your creativity, so, gather your materials, unleash your imagination, and let the joy of fabric bead making take over!

Stay blessed and be a blessing.

Before You Go

21 Secrets - Childs Play, Alma Stoller

I signed up to do 21 Secrets - Art Journal Playground, an online course organised by Connie Hozvicka of Dirty Footprints Studio back in January, and have only just got round to starting due to one thing or another getting in the way. 

There are 21 contributors and I have been spoilt for choice with where to start.  I decided to go with Alma Stoller, after having seen her Fabric bead designs.  Each contributor has been very generous with the amount of videos and pdfs that we have available.   In Alma’s course I have been making my own frames out of cardboard and recycled paper and they were really easy to make and very sturdy.

The oval and square ones have been my favourite and  the smaller frames really do look cute, once you start making them you won’t want to stop! 

My favourite technique was making the fabric beads, they do look pretty.  I will try a few variations with size and shape - you need a little patience with the sewing but they will look great in mixed media projects.

next on my workshop list is  Aimee Myers Dolich will be sharing how I get on soon, for now .......blessings!