What is beading?

There is so much you can do with beads - from decorating clothing to making hanging art to making jewelry. So there are different categories of beading and jewelry would be one of the main ones. Another category would be art and useful items would be another. I made myself a holder for lip balm on my key chain because I live in the desert and I always want my lip balm, but I don't want to leave it in the car where it would melt. So I think you can pretty much do anything you want with beads.

As far as what supplies are needed, if you have thread, a needle, and some beads you can do basic stuff. But if you want to do something like beaded flowers then you have to know something about wire, because the wire is what supports the petals that are on the stems, which are also made of wire and that sort of thing. Or if you want to do beading on cloth you have to know about sewing to some extent. But, if you have thread and beads you can make something.

There are definitely lots of patterns available for beading. You can search for "free bead pattern" online and find thousands of patterns for all kinds of stuff. There are hundreds and hundreds of books with beading patterns - everything from knickknacks to earrings to tapestries. I tend to make my own patterns, but there is a ton of stuff out there to get you started.

My website has tutorials that I offer for free and there are other people with free tutorials. And there are lots and lots of books available on everything from very basic to very advanced beading. On my website I review books that I've seen to say this one is very basic, this one is advanced, this one has patterns, this one just instructions and that sort of thing. I am actually looking at doing a book myself - that's very much in the works right now.