Monday, June 25, 2012

More buggy beauties for I Might Make That! Monday

Steampunk bug bead tutorial by Christi Friesen

A couple of months back, I did a roundup of eek-free beaded spiders for my Monday feature. It got a lot of page views--who knew it would resonate? Then a few weeks back, this book popped up on a lot of craft sites. I think I spotted it on CraftGossip and was going to blog about it, but then Mortira at Inspirational Beading and a few others beat me to it.

Beaded Bugs by Nicola Tedman 

So instead, I'll blog about some other cool insect beadwork I've spotted on Pinterest, Etsy, Artfire and elsewhere. Some are tutes and some are here for inspiration. (So amusing to discover that Googling "beaded beetles" turned up dozens of blinged-out Volkswagon images but no decent scarab patterns!)

So let's start with the top photo. It's Christi Friesen's steampunk bug made of polymer and clock parts. Most polymer work does not interest me, but I love the look of mixing it with metal. The free tutorial is very detailed, with lots of photos.

Here's a free flat-peyote pattern for a butterfly its designer calls "Three Roses."

Beading pattern from The Glass Butterfly

I like that it shows enough detail that you could do very realistic color gradations if you wanted.

Here's a cute pattern for a beaded ladybug pendant from Craftsy. It's not free, but here's the link to it.



These butterfly earrings are from Anthropolgie (no longer available). No tute, but with the right filigree component, I think I could concoct something similar.




Pearl of The Beading Gem's Journal did an excellent roundup of dragonfly jewelry tutorials last year, so I won't duplicate her efforts

The beauty below is not a tutorial, but I'm a fan of Ornan Volokh (a/k/a Snivli) and her blog Beads Fantasy and I have featured her work before. (You'll need Chrome or Google Translate, unless you happen to read Russian.)
Winged Insect byOrnan Volokh/Snivli

Everything below is offered up as more design inspiration. 


Beaded grasshopper by Spirys



Copper lacewing insect hairpin
by Sue Runyon Designs via Artfire




Source: etsy.com via Annie on Pinterest


A beaded leather bib necklace from lovisetto's Etsy shop. She has several variations for sale. 







PhD Beads makes jewelry out of real insect wings and resin.

P.S. My apologies if this post is displaying funny. Blogger seemed to be having issues when I wrote this, and the type was not looking normal in the page previews.

Anyway, for newcomers, the archive of my IMMT!M feature can be found by clicking the link in the top right corner. 

1 comment:

  1. I love that first cyberpunk bug. Not sure I want to make any of these but they sure are a lot of fun.

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