Transcripts
1. Welcome: Hello and welcome. My name is Lys, and I will be your instructor
for this wonderful class. As you can tell, I'm so
excited that you're here. Thank you so much for
registering for this class. We are going to be making
beautiful beaded rings. And I can't wait to
see what you create. First, we are going
to cover materials. So you may have received
a beadwork kit. If you did, you'll have
everything you need. If not, even if you did, it's great to look at the
materials section so you can dive a little bit deeper on why these materials
are so important. Next we are going to
be covering technique. So we're going to
dive right in and learn the basic
stitch technique. After that, once we've gotten a little bit comfortable
with the technique, we are going to move
into intuitive design. So this is my favorite
way to design because it allows you to just feel the movements and
really enjoy the process. Next, after that, we are going to cover
paper-based design. This type of design
is really cool because if you have
a specific vision, if you have a pattern
that you want or a motif that
you want to show, you can create that
using this technique. Once we're done with that, we're going to cover
how to size your ring, either for yourself or how
to surprise a friend or a partner or a loved
one with a custom ring. So after that, we will wrap
up and I can't wait to see what comes from
your intuition or from your paper-based design. So thank you so much
for joining me. Thank you for giving yourself this really beautiful
gift of beadwork, of enjoyment and fun. So I will see you
in the next lesson.
2. Tools and Materials: Lesson One materials. Okay, So the first material that you'll need
is a beading mat. Now, this is my
fancy beading mat, and I'll have this linked in the materials
printout that you'll receive with this class. But it's a really
great beading mat. It's got some cushion to it. It has this lip on the side where you can
stick your needle on. And it also prevents
beads from flying everywhere in case you
do bump it or anything. It's a great, great
beading mat I highly recommend
it if you think you might continue to
bead in the future. But if you're just beginning, there are some great alternatives
that work just as well. And some DIY advice
that I can also give. So you can go for just a
plain piece of fabric. Any fabric will do. However I recommend a fabric that has a
little more weight to it. So something like a
felt or a fleece, fleece is the best if
you're just going to use fabric because it's got
a little more weight to it. And it's got a bit
of thickness to it and you'll easily be
able to pick up beads. Your beads will have some friction so they
won't just roll away. Now, I have seen some people use a plain table for their beads and they
pick up beads that way. I don't really
recommend that because your beads tend to fly away. They tend to roll away. There's a risk of accidents
all over the place. And clean up is a lot harder, so I recommend something. Some people I actually have
seen use a bowl or little, just a little containers
where they can put their beads into and pick
them up with the needle. However, I recommend fabric. I really love it. I think it's simple and easy. And if you do want
a lip to yours and you only have something
like fleece or fabric. You can also cut that
fleece or fabric to fit into a box that you've
cut to a lower lip. You can put that fabric
into a cookie sheet. There's all different
kinds of ways to make something like this and make
it really work for you. Next will be needing
a pair of scissors. This is my favorite
pair of scissors, but you don't need something
like this necessarily. You just want something
that has a sharp end to it so it can really clip
up close to the beads. If you don't have something
like that, that's okay. Because you can use a
pair of nail clippers. Those will work
perfectly, just fine. It's actually perfect. They're just sharp enough
to get right in there. Next, you'll need
a beading needles. So this is a Japanese
beading needle. And I do recommend that you buy a specialized beading needle
because beading needles are really unique in that they are the same thickness all the way down throughout
the entire needle. Most embroidery needles
or sewing needles, they tend to be thinner here, but then once they get up to
this area, they get thicker. And the problem with
that is that once you start running your needle
through the beads, this thread will take
up space and you won't be able to run your needle
through multiple times. This allows you to
go easily through those tiny little beads in
those tiny little holes multiple times and really makes sure that you get
the result that you want. Really, I think a beading
needle is a must. This one is a size
13, I believe. But I'll leave the exact beading needle
needle in the Materials page. You can get these at a lot
of different crafts stores. They're really easy to find. This specific one I got
from a store in Canada. But they do sell online. And I do recommend this one. It's super long,
It's long-lasting. It's just the best beading
needle I've ever used. Next, we will need some thread. I really recommend this thread. It is called fire line, and it is a micro fused
braided beat thread. So it's especially made thread. And there's a little fishy here, I think because this is very
similar to fishing line. It is specially made for beads, but it has that same texture. And this one is a 6 pound thread
in the crystal color, which is a white thread. And this is a
one-twenty-five yard spool. There are a lot smaller spools. I think it's they come
in 15 yards as well. But yeah, this is my favorite
type of thread to use four rings because
it won't fray. When you are wearing a ring, it's going to fit
just very snug. So when you take it on and off, it's going to have
a lot of friction. And so this will prevent any of anything from
popping off any tears. A regular thread won't hold up to what you'll
need for a ring. Next, we'll want to cover beads. So what you'll want for
this project is size 11. Delica beads. Delica beads are
really special in that they are cylinders. You can see up close that these are all kind of cylinders, tiny little cylinders with
sharp edges on each side. They're rounded on the
whole side and then on each side and almost
looks like it's a square. I will show you what a
regular seed bead looks like. You can use a regular seed bead, rounded seed bead, but I
don't recommend it. It won't come out as clean. Regular seed bead, this is
a regular seed bead. And so for your project, this regular seed beads
won't line up very well. You won't get this
nice, crisp edge here. It'll give a different effect
and you might like it. So if all you have are
seed beads, try that out. But I really do recommend that you invest
in the delica beads. I'll also show you
kind of up-close. I'll pick these up with
my needle and kinda show you compare the two
types of beads. You'll probably be able
to tell the difference. It is a very slight difference. But in beadwork, these slight differences can create a mountain of difference. So these here, the blue
ones are the delicas. And these ones here are
the rounded seed beads. Next, you'll want
a stopper bead. Okay, what is the stopper bead? It's basically just
a bigger bead. Any bead will do. I bought this jar from Joanne's. I believe. It's just like a cheap cheap, cheap jar of beads. And let me get this tighten up. And you'll see this
bead compared to our delicate bead is very big. So you'll just need a bead that is bigger and preferably
a different color. This is just going to, this is just a tool. We're not going to actually
use this for anything. This will just help to. It's kind of like not a knot
at the end of your thread. It will help the beads not
to slide off basically, but if you don't want to go and buy a whole tube of beads, you can use a piece of masking tape that you tape
at the end of your thread. And so once you slide
your beads down, that will hold it. Alright, yay, we have now covered all of our materials and why they're so important. We've learned all about
beads, needle, thread. Scissors are stopper bead
and are beading mat. So you're ready to
finally get started? Let's learn how to
start our beaded rings. In the next lesson,
I'll see you there.
3. Getting Started: The first thing we need to do
is measure out our thread. So we've got our fire line
and we need to clip about, well actually the length will
depend on your your body. I usually take this thread, the end of the thread in my fingers and I
run it all the way along my arm until I
reach my shoulder. Once I've reached my shoulder
and I have that length, I will just cut it. And the reason why
you want to cut it to your specific arm length, because that's really how that's what you'll
be able to handle. If you cut twice as long, you won't be able to pull the
thread through very easily. This is just the most
comfortable length for you personally. So next, we will be
threading the needle. Now, this is a step where a lot of my students
get a little frustrated. So be patient, take your time, you'll get better at it. I'm going to show you a little technique
that I like to use. So the first thing that I
do is I grab my thread, put it between my two fingers
and my non-dominant hand. I just run my nail through it to flatten
that tip a little bit. Next, I'll just, I'll
have a little end. So the technique is that you don't want to push the
thread into the needle. It'll make it a lot harder. If you instead push your needle into this thread so
you're moving your needle. Just line up the
eye and the thread and push your needle
through just like that. I think that is going to
make it a lot harder to thread your needle if
you're having a hard time, is if you are, if you leave a long and out and you're trying to
thread it like this. So just make sure that you
slide that thread down. You only have a little
bit of thread showing. Then you pass your needle
onto this thread like so What you wanna do is leave
about a six inch tail on your, on your, on one side. This is the tail here. And then the rest of your
thread is all along. Now we're going to
add our stopper bead. This here is our stopper bead. And remember it
is a bigger bead that is just going to
serve as a way for our beadwork not to
slide off the thread will be removing this later
is just a tool for us to use. You can also use a piece of masking tape or any tape
that you have laying around. Alright. So we are going
to pick up our bead. Like so. We're going to slide
the bead all the way down to the
end of our thread. There's the end. Leave a little bit of a tail, maybe three inches or so, or maybe even actually
a little bit more, five inches or so. So this is where, this is where are we We just passed our
needle through this way. My needle is attached to this
part of this thread here. So we're just gonna do
a little circle and come back up through
that bead like so. Slide your needle
all the way through. Hold your bead down because
it will slide around. So just hold the bead
down and pull your needle so that the thread just does a circle all the way around
and it should look like that. If you really want to secure it, you can actually go
around another time. So same exact thing. I'm just I'm holding this
red here just securely. I'm holding the bead with my two fingers here so
it doesn't slide away. And I'm going to pass my
needle through again. So let me show you
what this looks like. So you'll just have some
threads going through this. If you pull this bead now, it shouldn't go anywhere. It's pretty tight. If it isn't, just
pull both ends. And that should
provide a really, really stable foundation
for you to slide your beads on and
not have to worry about them going all
the way through, running away and having
to start all over again. That was a lot of prep work, but are you so excited? The next lesson, I'll be
teaching you how to do the peyote stitch and we'll start really
constructing our ring. See you there.
4. Peyote Stitch: Welcome back. We are now ready
to start learning. Our stitch. Stitch is called peyote stitch. And it basically, it's kinda looks like
stacking bricks together. The first thing that you
wanna do is pick a color. It doesn't matter what colors, since we're just
learning right now. And you'll pick up. It depends on how thick
you want your piece to be. For this project,
we are going to be making one that is eight beads So you'll pick up
eight beads, 12345678. And you just want to count
them just to be sure. So yeah, I've got eight and
slide them all the way down. Here, you're going to see
the benefit of having your stopper bead
is that it won't let the beads go down and you'll need this extra
bit of spread in the end. So this just keeps it
nice and tight there without damaging the thread or knotting up the thread that
we'll then need later. Okay, so now that you have
your eight beads, you'll wrap. Okay, So and placements. So you'll want to grab the end, the bead, the b's right here. Just kinda wrap the string
around your finger. You can hold it down. This is going to take
some time for you to be able to stabilize these beads, but you'll get the hang of it. Okay, Let's do a little zoom in so that you can
really see what I'm doing here. Here we go. Alright, so I'm going to
be picking up one more B. Actually, I am going to do an opposite color so that you can really see what
I'm doing here. I'm gonna go for gold
bead and my next step. So here's the tail, here's the end of my
spreaders, my bead stopper. And this part of the thread is where my needle is
coming out from. So I'm going to go back down the opposite way and skip some not going
through this one. I'm going to skip my first
bead and go in through my second we'd like so and pull your needle all the way out until something
like that happens. If you did not get
something like this, maybe you've got
something like that. Or it looks a little wonky. Just pull a little, play with your
beads a little bit. Just kind of move them around and they should sit on top
of each other like so. I'll show you what I have here. It looks like a T on the top. Okay, so next step is let's
take another gold beads. So all I'm going to
encourage you to take two different colors here
so you can really see what's going on if you're
using just one color. This might be very difficult. Alright, so my thread is
coming out of this bead here. And we're gonna do
the same thing. So we're going to skip this
bead and we're gonna go down through that next bead. Happens. Sometimes. Pull all the way through. Sometimes you will have to play around with it a little
bit to get it to really get in there
and don't be afraid to pull on your thread so
that all your beads align. You don't want any
loose thread in there. It's okay if your
beads are loose here, it's actually better if they are a little loose here that
you have some wiggle room. But up here you really want a nice strong base
for your ring. Alright, so we're going to
pick up one more gold bead. And you guessed it. Same thing. We're going to skip this bead and go into
this second bead. Keep poking myself.
But that's okay. It just comes with
the territory. Alright, So that one
didn't quite go in. So I'm pulling a
little bit harder, playing around with it, pulling the thread, just making sure they
line up really nicely. Alright, so we still
have two more beads. So our last bead is going
to be another cold B. Again, skip one, put it
through the last bead. Pull, really pull that
thread really tight. Just make sure everything
is nice and aligned. Okay, Perfect. So this is now your foundation
for peyote stitch. Congratulations, this is
the first step and this is really the hardest part
about this whole process. If you need to review, feel free to pause here
and go back and try again. You will get this, but it just takes a little
bit of practice and patience. Next step is building
the length of our ring. We've got the thickness here. And let me just put this up to my fingers so that you
can kinda see six, this is going to be
a pretty thick ring, but it's a nice size. I really enjoy this
eight bead reading. Alright, so I've
added a third color, this really beautiful
cream color. And the reason why I'm adding a third
color is not because I be only because
I want you to be able to see how this grows. Okay, so we've got
our foundation here and we're going
to pick up one of the cream beans, just one. And our threads are, okay, So this is where our
stopper bead thread is and this is where
our needles red is. Just grab the needle
thread, pull it a little. If you've got some slack there and you're going to put
your needle through. So you'll see that these gold beads created
a bit of a bump. Like there's a space in-between
each of the gold beads, even the end one here. So what we're going to
do is we're going to put our needles through each of those cylinder beads
that is sticking out. The beads are really in
a way talking to us. They're telling us,
okay, everything, every bead that is sticking out, That's where you want to
put your needle through. So we're going to put our
needles through this one. Great pull. Okay, now pick up another
one of your third color. Run it through. Another one. Another bead, run
it through that. That's sticking out there. So they should really just pop into place if they
don't just wiggle them around and pull
your thread tight. Picking up one more bead
to complete my row here. And I'm putting
my needle through that last gold bead
that is sticking out. Okay. This is really exciting. It's actually
looking really cool. And I really love
this color combo. Okay, so we're going
to go back down. So really what we're
doing is we're just going back and forth
and back and forth. And we're gonna
continue like this until we've reached the
end of our project. So I'm going to keep working and feel free to continue with me or you can skip on
to the next step. I'm going to provide
some nice working music that you can really get into it. But keep following along
if you have any problems, just press pause and go back. Or just keep watching my
technique and see how I do it. Okay, So by now you
should be a little more comfortable with the
Peyote stitch technique. However, check-in with yourself. How are you feeling? If you
need a little more practice, continue on with our pattern. If not, let's dive right into
the intuitive based design. This is my favorite
way of designing because it is magical. It's surprising and it
allows you to let go of any plans and just let
the design create itself. How amazing is that? Okay. If you are not so into intuitive base design
and want to move on to something more planned
or paper-based design. That is okay. However, a word of caution. This is a more
advanced technique. It's advanced because
you need to pay attention to you where
you are in your pattern. You need to pay attention to your technique and also to
your bead color choice. So I highly, highly,
highly recommend, starting with the
intuitive based design, see how you like it. And if not, then move on
to paper-based design. You can do both. Alright, so choose
your own adventure, and I will see you
in the next lesson.
5. Intuitive Design: Okay, we are now onto design. So we're going to tackle
intuitive design first. What intuitive design
means is simply it just means having fun and
doing whatever you want. Just an example of
something that I've made intuitively is all
of my Montana, the oro rings that
are on my website. They're all made intuitively just like all these
different shapes. And I just started seeing
that they started looking like mountains and Montana De Oro in Spanish
means golden mountain. So that's why I named these
rings that because all of the shapes kinda looked like mountains under a starry sky. So let's just see what happens. Okay, So usually I
take a deep breath. We're just learning there's no pressure for this
to be anything. Okay. I'm going to start with teal just because I feel
like putting a teal be down. Okay. Now I'm thinking, and you just basically go for
whatever strikes you, whatever color palette you have, just go for it. Just putting want to
be down at a time, committing to one bead. So I am actually going
to go for the cream now. I am going to
continue with cream. And actually let me
zoom in a tiny bit here so you can see a
little closer. Alright. So we're going to continue with the cream for
some reason I feel like going for cream and I'm going to continue with cream, going back down and going
one more with cream. And now I'm feeling like
I needed a little change. So I'm gonna go for teal. Okay. So far I haven't put any gold beads down in
my intuitive design. I'm going to keep
going with teal. Now I feel like doing gold. So I just got kinda
like something said, Okay, go for gold. So let's do gold. Here. Go for it teal now. What do I want next? Cream. I'm not even looking
at the design at all. I'm not worrying
about the design. I'm simply looking at my
beads and seeing which bead. I feel like putting down. Sometimes if I can't get
the bead onto my needle, I'll just be like, okay, that bead doesn't want to go on. I'll try a different color,
I'll try a different bead. So just go for whatever you
feel like in that moment. And when you do this, something magical
happens because, because you're just focused on whatever you feel like
doing in the moment. There is something magical that happens where you start to
kind of get lost in it. You start to really
enjoy the movement. You start to really enjoy
seeing the beads come together. There's just something
that is very grounding and very calming
about this exercise. This kind of intuitive
design for me has helped me in so many ways. I have reduced my stress, I've reduced my anxiety. It's just been such a great help for me in just getting
lost in the process and just being so
surprised at what my subconscious can create
without me even trying, you know, not everything in
life has to be an effort. That's one thing that I'm
learning right now too, is like things can come easily. Things can be fun, and be just as worthy and just as beautiful
as something that I really, really tried hard for. Because I used to
believe that I had to work so hard to
accomplish anything. I've just lost my
thread from my, my needle and my thread. So I'm going to read thread. But I used to believe that
I had to work hard to deserve something beautiful or deserve something that I wanted. And through beadwork I've seen, wow, beautiful things can happen by accident. They can be. They can be easy because
I can have fun with it. And it can be
something that someone just cherishes or that
I cherish so much. So. Don't be afraid. Just continue with the beads. Don't think about it too much. Just keep weaving your beads. Enjoy the process. Take a break if you need to. And enjoy. All right, So we have been
intuitively designing for a little while now and look
at this amazing results. I never would have
come up with this had I not just been
following my intuition. This here was just a pattern
that we started with. So I think it looks
really beautiful. Look at this incredible
pattern, all these colors. It just makes such
a beautiful result. I really love doing
this intuitive design. It's just so magical and beautiful and every
single piece different. And that's what makes it special and that's what
makes anything that is handmade and just
intuitive, so magical. What did your intuition
come up with? I am so curious. If you can tag me
in a picture on In or send me an email
with what you've created. I can't wait to see what comes out of this really
magical technique. So by this point, you might actually be
running out of thread. So don't worry, in
the next lesson, we will cover how to end and add more threads.
So see you there.
6. Adding Thread: Adding thread. Alright, so before we
do add our thread, we need to finish off what we already
have on our needles. So I have about
five inches left, but I feel like it's
getting a little bit more difficult to work with
this little bit of thread. So I am going to
basically tuck it, weave it in and tuck it in. Now, one thing that's really important before we
start to tuck in our thread is that you need to remember where your
thread came out of. So beginning, ending right here. At this point, you
can kind of look at your design and you can see there's a little bit
of a triangle here. So at the bottom of my triangle, that's where I need to start. Once I add threat,
we're gonna first tuck in our thread so we're
not going to go forward, which would be forward
if we were adding beads, but we're going to
go backwards and tuck are spread in
backwards without a bead. And we're gonna weave
it up a little bit, going back and forth between
the beads, pulling tight. And we are going to maybe take a little stop right
here to tie a small knot. So how do you tie knot? Well, takes a
little bit of work, but you have to just
dig your needle in and grab one of those threads
that's in-between the beads. So it's taken me a second, but I've grabbed a thread and
you can maybe see it here. Grabbed a tiny bit of thread. You can see there. So I'm going to run
my needle through it. Not all the way through. A loop is going to
form like that. And I'm going to put
my needle through that loop and pull really tight. Then once I've done that, I am going to continue
weaving my thread in. I'm not going to go all
the way to the top. I'm going to come back down. So I'm out through
this bead right here. And I'm just gonna
go beside that, be down through
this gold one here. So I'm doing a little bit of a circle here, coming back up. And you can choose wherever
you want to weave it through. There's no formula or
set way to do this. I'm just trying to
do my best to weave. My thread ends so it doesn't
poke back out anywhere. Usually, doing that in
circles instead of just going straight across is
the best way to go. So I'm almost to my edge here. So I'm gonna go out
the edge, Pull tight. Really put some
tension on my thread. Grab my scissors and snip
and still see a little bit. So I just like to run
my nail through it. But the rest of that
thread is gone. Adding thread, take
your fire line and cut again the
length of your arm. So just off camera, I'm just cutting a
little snip off. I am going to now thread my
needle so same as before. If you need help going or
threading your needle, just go back to the
threading needle module. Should be fairly
easy for you now, but stay patient with
it, you'll get it. Okay, so I've created my needle. So remember, we came
out, we ended here. So we need to begin here. But I'm not just going to
begin there right away. I want to make sure that my
thread is really anchored on. So I'm going to do
almost the same thing that I did before with
ending the thread. So I'm going to go in, takes a little while to get, grab a little piece of thread. Got it. So it's just a tiny
bit of thread. I'm going to push my needle through and not all
the way through, but I'm going to bring
a lot of it through. Okay, so here we have
about one inch of thread left on the tail, but we want quite
a bit more because we're going to tuck
that thread in, leave about five inches of
thread and make a knot. So let me just show
that to you again. All I did was so all I'm doing here is tying one over the other
and pulling tight. Okay, so now that
I've done that, I can actually do it one
more time just for security. So one over the other. This simple not pull very tight. Then grab your needle again. So we're going to hide it again just the
same way we did before. We're going to go down towards
where we want to begin. This is, this is the area that
we ended our last threads. So we want to go
back down. That way. I'm going to pass my needle
down through this bead here. Pull the thread. It's going
to look a little bit messy. But soon you'll see
what's going on here. And you're just going to
pull that nice and tight. And then you're
going to keep going. Pull tight. Keep going
down towards the area, towards the bead
where you started. Pull tight and now we are
ready to add more beads. But you might be saying, Okay, well I have this tail
just hanging out in the middle of
my bead work here. You can either do this
at the end or right now. We're gonna do it right now because I don't want it to get in the way
of all my other work. So I do recommend that
you tuck this in right now so you don't have
to mess with it later. So that five inches or so
that you have hanging out, thread your needle with that. And then you're just going
to insert the beads. So this one is coming out from in-between
those two beats. So I'm just going
to weave it up. And weave it up There's no set direction
or way to weave this. Now I'm going to go to the
side here because I feel like weaving it in a bit
of a circle is good. And I'm gonna kinda
go back up and just weave to where you
feel like it's good. I feel like this
is getting good. I'm just going to go up to
the edge so then I can clip my rest of my thread. So I'm going to go up
through here. Again. Grab your scissors, pull that thread nice and
tight, and click. And now. You've added thread to your beadwork and you
can continue your work. All right, So how
was probably the hardest or second hardest
part of this entire process? So I hope you're still with me and I hope
you are having fun. If you're feeling a little
frustrated at this point, don't worry. Take a break. Remember, we're just
learning how to walk. This is totally brand new
and it's okay to have some compassion and
patience with yourself. The whole point is to have fun. So why get frustrated? Alright, so in the next lesson, we are going to be covering
paper-based design. However, if you're ready
to finish your ring, your intuitive design ring, just jump on over to
the lesson after that, where we will be sizing and
finishing off our rings. But if you want to then try paper-based
design, go for it. Doing both is wonderful. So I'll see you in
the next lesson.
7. Paper Based Design: On the website you will
see a PDF download. And this is a sheet that I made, especially for you
for this class. And I hope you find
it really helpful. So here we have three different thicknesses
of rings that you can make. If you already did
the intuitive design. We made an eight bead ring. And basically what
a bead ring means is it determines the thickness. So this eight bead
ring starts off with 12345678 beats this 16. This one's for, this one is
the ring that we created in our intuitive design
class or module. And this one is
about a centimeter thick or a little less
than half of an inch. So if you want something a
lot thinner and daintier, go for the four bead ring. If you want something a
little bit thicker here, I can put this on and a
bit more of a statement. Try the eight bead. For this lesson,
I am going to be showing you how to make
a six-bead ring. So we'll keep it simple. Right? So the next
thing you need to know for this sheet is
this column sections. So there's numbers all
the way through 39. So this basically determines
the length of your ring. So let's say I want to
make a size five ring. I will need to stop
at the 30 mark. After the 30 mark. If I wanted to make a size 11, then I will go all the
way until the end. So for this class, I'd like to make
a size five ring. So I know that I need
to stop at column 30. So I am going to mark
right after column 30. Okay, so once I've marked
that this is very important. You don't want to
mark going forward, you want to mark going back. So here's what I mean. You're going to
mark after the 30, then go to the left. So go backward and up then to the right and up and to the left than up
then to the right, up to the left and up, if you were to, for instance, go the
other direction. So let's say I wanted to
make a size, size ten ring. So I mark the 37. So this is the
wrong way to do it. So you would be going forward. See here it went
up and backward. And forward. This is
the wrong way to go. It won't line up in the end because you have to
align these beads up with these thick and
all notch together. And you'll see what
I mean later on. The important thing is, is
that you go back and up and that should give you a
perfect designed design ring. Okay. So I usually mark this off because I don't want to make sure
that I don't use that part. The next part of this
process is the fun part. But a lot of my students
get stuck here, so it's choosing
your color palette. So if you've got the bead kit, you will have four colors, so it'll be a little
easier for you to choose. But once you have
a good bead stash, it gets really difficult
to choose your colors. But I always like to go simple, especially when I'm
learning something new. So for this one, I'm going to choose
black and cream. I love this classic color combo and it's great for the
fall weather coming up. Okay, so I've got my palette here and I've got my
thickness of ring. I've determined where
to end my design, and now I'm going
to start designing. So there are a number of
different ways to do this. My favorite way is to use colored pencils
or pencil crayons. Okay, so you can
choose whatever colors you want or that match
with your beads. So for instance, these would
be my matching colors. But really I only
need one because the negative space will be
where the light beads come. So I just have to really mark where the dark beads are at. So that's one way to do it. So for instance, let's use this. Let's just practice here
on the four bead ring. So you can, if I was
designing here. You could just color
in wherever you feel. Like the beads should
go and try and make this a free-flowing process unless you have something
specific in mind. But I just kinda like to
have a little fun with it and kinda see what comes. Now. It's looking
fairly clear as to what shape is going to emerge. I can always add, take. Can't really take away unless you're doing this in pencil. But yeah, that's
one way to do it. So we mentioned pencil, the other ways to
do it in pencil. If you don't have
colored pencils or pencil crayons, you can say, Okay, my black will be x
and my cream will be o. So we'll do x, x, x 00. I mean, this, yes, this works. This is really good, but for me, this is a little difficult. I would rather do it
if I just had pencil, I would say, Okay,
I'm just going to mark where the black ones are. I would just fill in where I
wanted my black ones to go. And this is just me. I just feel like I can see the pattern much
better than x's and o's. This is my absolute
favorite though. So use what you have in your at your disposal. And let's start
designing our pattern. Alright, so we are
ready to design. Let me grab my beads real quick. And now I am going to
begin designing and I'm going to use the
pencil method because I think that's what most
people will have at home. So I want you to
see how it works. Alright. So this will be the
beginning of our pattern, and this will be the
end of our pattern. And you, if, depending
on your design, you may want to be mindful
of where your pattern, these two, these two sides
are going to notch together. So if you want your
pattern to align, you'll want to be mindful of where you begin
and where you start. So for instance, you
may want to go this way so that the
pattern continues. But for me I'm not going
to worry about that. I just yeah, I I like to
do more free flowing, so I'm going to just play around and see
where they line up. And usually it just
works out for me. Okay, Let's begin. And you can color in where
the numbers are too. Those are also
part of your grid. And yours can be
completely random. You can do the exact
same thing as me. It doesn't have to be a
repeating pattern either. It can totally be just
unique to whatever you want. I'm just
really attracted to the mountains right now. And so I like this kind
of mountain range here. Okay, So here, if I wanted
to, like I was saying, I could be mindful like
this started here, so I may want to end down here, so it would be continuous. So I would just color
this last one here. So here these two would connect and all these
would connect as well. So if I ended up here, it would be a very sharp, Let's say I colored
this and it would be a very sharp drop
to this over here. So I'll just leave it like that. And I'm thinking I might add
a couple of, just maybe. I'm now thinking I might
add some gold in there because I like the idea of there just being little
stars in the sky. So actually what
I'm gonna do here, instead of coloring that in. I'll make an, make an O. So I know that those
are my stars, my gold. Okay, cool. I'll put another one here. Okay, awesome. So we
have now finished. So continue on and complete your entire design
for your ring size. And then meet back here, makes sure that you've already got all your materials prepped So that means cutting
your thread, your needle, adding your stopper
bead and laying out all of your beads
in your color palette. We're ready to begin our
paper-based design ring. So since this is a six-bead ring, we're going to begin
with six beads, and we're starting
from the bottom here. So we're going to
add a black bead, cream, cream, cream,
cream, cream. Okay, so let's do that. So I'm grabbing one black and 12345 cream beads to total six beads. Alright, once you've
made sure you have the right number of beads, slide them all the way to the bottom by your stopper bead. And we're going to go
on to the next row. Alright, so what I like
to do is I like to mark exactly the beads that
I have already put down. So I've got this one
down, this one down, this one down, this one
down, and this one down. This one now. Okay, perfect. So this just helps
me to keep track. You may not need this, but for me, it's just
like a lifesaver. I can't do it without
marking this and it may be a little
bit cumbersome, but I highly
recommend that you do mark off every bead
that you've done. Okay, so now the rest is going to be different
from that first initial row. This is just our
foundational rope, but as you can remember, peyote stitch will have a notch, B will have a notch bead here, will have a notch
bead right here, and a notch bead
right here, right? Okay, so we've got 123 notches, so we need to create
those notches. So our first bead will
come in through here. Then we'll skip a beat. At our second bead, skip a bead and add
our third bead. So we're going to add
a cream, cream black. So just three beads on this row. Okay, So we are going to add
that first cream bead here. And we're going to
grab our cream bead, skip that first bead, and then put our needle through that second bead like that. Okay, so for our next
one we have a cream bead. So let's pick up a cream bead. And we are going to
do the same thing, skip a bead and put our
needle through that. Next one, ouch. Start looking
something like that. And your pattern, of course,
is gonna look different. Next, we are going to
put in a black bead. Just bear with me. I need to adjust my thread a little bit. Okay, Perfect. Okay, So we've got our
first foundational row. Okay, it doesn't
look like much yet, but it will start to
look like our pattern. Again. Once you've completed a row, make sure you mark that off. And our next one, since our thread is coming
out through the bottom here, we're going to move up upwards. So we're going to start down here with our one black bead. Skip a bead. Second bead is
going to be black as well, and our third bead
is going to be gold. Okay, so let's continue on. So my black bead first, then another gold bead or
another black beads, sorry. And then finally a gold bead. Super fun. I love the gold beads. They just add a really nice
pop of shine and brightness. Okay, so we've got that done. So you did black Black. As I mark it off, I'm actually looking at my work and seeing, okay, yes, I did
black, black, and gold. And I'll know exactly
the ones that I've just put on because
they are notches here. So all the notches are just the last ones
that you've put on. Okay, so now we're going to go back down and we're going to go one cream to cream
and three black. Okay, So one cream two cream and three black. Okay, we've done that. So now we're going
to mark it off. One cream, two cream
and three black. Yes. Okay, so we're going
to go back up with one black to green and three cream. So our first bead
is a black bead. Our second beat is a cream bead. And our third bead is
another green bead. Perfect. I've done black,
green, and green. Alright, so now that we've
done a few rows together, you should be getting
the hang of this. I am going to continue as a
fast forward through this. And I'll meet you
back at the end. Okay, I am almost
done with my pattern. I'm up here, so
coming down cream, green, gold, and cream. Last row is so exciting. Black, cream. Alright, and now for the
reveal, isn't that amazing? This is, this is a challenging
way to design for me. But the rewards are so amazing. This looks so beautiful and it's going to make
a really amazing ring. I love that it looks like
mountains and the night sky. And it's not as abstract as my, my intuitive design pieces, but it just tells a story
and I really loved that. Alright, so let me just show
you why we did this here. Actually let me mark these off just because I want to
feel like I'm really done. And remember how I told you how the ending
and the beginning, it, it has to be this way. The notches have to be this way. That is because if you turn, so I've got the length of my ring and I'm
turning it all the way around as if it were a ring like that. Alright, so if yours don't
slide into each other, you need to add one more row. So it is an easy fix if you, if you did that part wrong, just add one more row
and then turn it around and make sure that that
slots in well. So how is your paper-based
design ring coming out? Is the pattern surprising
you a little bit, or did it come out
exactly as planned? I'm so curious. well, if you have tried the intuitive design
and the paper-based design, I'm also curious about which
one you felt more drawn to, which one you enjoy anymore. We all have a different
creative process. Some of us really
love to plan and be strategic and others just
enjoy a more free flow. And that's the great thing about the artistic process,
is it's personal. So, okay, now that we have
the length of our ring, we're going to size
it and finish it off. This is probably the
most satisfying part, is just finishing and
putting on your ring. So let's jump over to the next lesson and I'll
show you how to do that.
8. Sizing Your Ring: It is now time to size
and finish your ring. First, we'll start off
with sizing your ring. Now there are a few different
methods of doing this. And I'll start off by
showing you the easiest. This method really will, will only work if you're
making this ring for yourself or if the person
you're making it for. If you can have their hand, if you can use their
hand to measure. So the way that you
do It's very simple. You just lay the ring
on the finger that you would like to have the ring on and you grab the ring with the rest
of your fingers like so. Flip it over. Yes. Those notches slot together
perfectly, just like that. And this is the perfect
ring size for me. Now, let's say I wanted
it on my middle finger. I'm going to put this
finger is the ring on my middle finger and flip it. Now, you see here that it doesn't have to
really pull it tight. It doesn't come together
on the other side. So if that does happen to
you, that's totally okay. All you need to do
is take your needle and thread and add
another row going down, and then another
row going back up, and then you'll be
up another size. The reason why you need to add two more rows is
because you need them to slot or notched
together, like so. Okay, so that's the easiest
way to size your ring. You don't need to
know your ring size or anything like that. Second way to find
your ring size would be using this download that I've added to the bottom
of this video. When you print it out, you'll need to measure
with a ruler to make sure that from here to
here is two inches. Once you've done that, you will pick three different
ways of sizing your ring. Now, if you want to try
to surprise someone, this is the easiest way. You can sneak and grab
one of their rings. Then slide it over
each of these circles so that you find the
circle that best fits. What I mean by best fits is
that the outer black circle here should fit right against the edge of the
inside edge of the ring. For me, I'm thinking this is 12. It could also be 12.5, but I'm seeing that
some of my circle is hiding is getting
blocked in the 12.5. So I'm thinking, yes, this is a size 12 ring. So now I can make using my bead using my beaded
ring design guide. I can say, okay,
I need a size 12. And so here we
don't have size 12, but most likely it will be just one or two beads
bigger than this one. You can use this method which
is using a string methods. It's not as accurate and I wouldn't necessarily
recommend it. But this one is actually a really nice one where
you can cut out these templates and
wrap them around your finger or
someone else's finger and get their ring size. So that can work
really nicely as well. And this template is provided by fire
mountain gem and beads. They're a great store. I get a lot of my
supplies from them too, and they are listed in the
materials download as well. So thank you to them for
this free instruction sheet. So we have found our ring
size and now we're ready to move on to finishing our ring. Alright, so we are ready
to finish our ring. We found our ring size, we know that this will fit. We've made sure that our
when we turn our ring in, like so these notches slide
into each other just like so. Once all of that is done, we are going to, we're going to keep our needle threaded onto that
last bit and we are going to slip off
our stopper bead. Okay, So that is done. And then we are going to turn our ring
all the way around. I like to slide it in-between my middle finger and just hold it with my thumb like this. So this is our tail end, our short tail end, and this is our thread, a needle and let me
just grab that here. This is our threaded
needle end and it's going to get a little bit
messy right now, but just stay focused
and you will get it. Alright So I'm going to
just spread it open a little bit so you can see
exactly what I'm doing. Okay So our thread is coming out
from this bead here, right? So we want to basically do. It's going to jump
back and forth, kind of like a zipper. Okay, so I am putting
my needle through this bottom bead here and pulling my needle
all the way through. And as I pull this thread here, it's going to bring
it altogether. So what I've done here, so you can see it'll slip out if you don't hold
both sides there, but can pull there. Okay. So once you have that, you are going to now jump
over to the other side. Okay, so you're going
to jump over two. Let me pull my tail here. It's getting a little
list down there. Okay? So this can be
a little bit messy. So we're going to jump
to the other side here and put your
needle through there. Okay. And now we're going to jump
to the other notch here on the other side and put
your needle through there. And we're going to jump
to the other notch on the other side and put
our needle through. As you go, you may need to
pull your tail a little bit. And you may need to pull on
this string a little bit. It'll just keep
wanting to open up, but you just have to be a
little bit more mindful here. So we've just come out
of this bead here. So we're going to come to the
other side here, like so. Then we're going to do
our final one here. Well, second two, final one. And that has all notched up. Now, if I do this, you will see where all
that string has gone. I don't want that, but I just wanted you to see the zipper. And as you can see, even if your beadwork
comes loose, you can always pull
on each of the tail ends and get that back
to where it needs to be. Okay, so this is where our
needle is at with this string. And you're going to
want to come back down on the other side. So the one beside there, and this is where our
tail is coming out of. So I'm gonna go down this way. And you'll notice that I'm
holding the tail right here, kind of out of the way. We are going to
continue going back and forth all the way down. I'm just jumping right to left, right to left until I
get all the way down. And I am going to just hop either right or left
however you want to. I'm going to hop this way. And now I'm just doing what
we did when we added thread, is just kind of weaving your
thread in wherever you can, wherever you want to. And this one's just really
important because it is the and so you really
want to tuck that in. I'm going back and forth
and in little circles around up and down. And just making, you're
making sure that you're adding your
needle to a bead adjacent to that thread or to the bead that your
thread is coming out of. Just one beat at a time here. Going to go down this gold bead. I feel like it's getting
pretty sturdy at this point. So I am going to cut my thread. Actually, no, I am not
going to cut my thread. I am going to tie a little not. So just like we did
with adding threads, grab a piece of thread
right in-between one of those beads. Put your needle through
the loop and pull tight. And if you're not ended up
up here, just keep pulling. It will eventually
go down into that. Then I'm just going
to go out a few more. And I'll show you how to cut in the center so you don't
have to actually cut. I made a little mistake
here, but that's okay. I just need to put my
needle back through. Okay, perfect. So I'm gonna grab my scissors. I'm going to cut
here in the middle, so I'm not cutting on the edge, and this is just a preference. You can do it either way. So again, pulling
this very tight. Then snip. This one is really nice because the middle one is
nice because you can just run your fingernail in and the string will just
disappear into your work. Now we're going to, we have this, we're almost done. We have this tail end left where we started our beadwork and
we left about five inches. We are going to take our needle. So we're going to thread
our tail end here. And we're going to go. So our zigzag is
right around here, it's right beside this be
this is where our zigzag is. So I like to go through that
zigzag to reinforce it. So you're going to go, we're going to go to the right of that bead where
it's coming out from. And we're doing almost the exact same thing we did earlier. Just running are needle through, few beads going back and forth. Sometimes your needle will
not want to go through, don't force it because
you could crack a bead. If your needle is just
not going through, just go back out or read
thread your needle and don't, don't force it to
too much because there could just be not
enough space for your needle. And I've had beads
crack and it's just really disappointing
when that happens. Okay, so I'm going back up. And again, this is
there's no plan here. You can do it
however you want to. Just make sure you have
enough thread left. And we're gonna make
a little note here. I'm going to grab
a little piece of thread in-between the bees, just like we did earlier,
pulls through lightly. I lost my thread, my needle, which is okay, that's going to happen
at this process. If you don't want
that to happen, leave a longer tail here. Okay, so just going to try
to grab a little bit here. Okay, Got some and
pulls through. You'll have your little loop, put your needle
through your loop. You can even do
that twice to get an even more secure knot
and pull really tight. So my needle just
unthreaded and that's okay. That means that my
thread is kinda short. If you're finding
that your knee, your thread is just
way too short and you can't you can't put your needle through
the beads anymore. You can always go through
the beads first and then write your needle as your needle is
already in the beadwork. Like so. You can just do it that way. Alright. It looks like my needle
is just a little bit struggling. A little bit. Let's see. Okay, we got it. Okay, Cool. So I am going
to cut the end off. Let's see here, Let's
see what's going on. Oh my goodness!!! We've got a finished piece now. Let's see if it fits. Oh my goodness, look
at that finished ring! Beautiful. This is so amazing. I hope you're feeling this exact same way right now where you're just admiring your
ring and finding the best angle that you like. And this is really such. This is really one
of the best parts, is just admiring your
work and knowing that you made all
of this yourself. Okay guys, you have now created your very
first beaded ring! I'm so proud of you. Congratulations, you did it. Okay, so I will see you in the next lesson
where we will just do a little bit of
wrap-up and congrats. You did it.
9. Thank you: Okay, friends, thank you so much for joining
me in this class. Thank you for letting me be your guide in this
beadwork journey. And I'm so proud of you. You've made something today, you learned that something new. I hope you had so much fun. And I will be teaching more classes in the future,
more advanced classes. So I'm glad that you took
this class because this will launch you into being
ready for my next classes. Alright, thank you so much. Stay in touch. Send me an email anytime you
want to with your creations. I would really love to see them. Alright. Thank you again.
My name is Lys and thank you for having me.
Lys Santamaria, Visual Artist @lys.artist
