In addition to beading magazines like Bead and Button that have wonderful information on beading stitches, there are some books on beading techniques that I have and found invaluable time and time again. If you are like me and a self-taught bead-weaver, do yourself a favor and build a library in your studio. I have all my magazines in binders by year to keep them nice and neat.

I don’t ever part with my beading books…or any other craft books for that matter, I keep them all for the valuable resource they continue to be. I do have some favorites that I turn to.

“The Beaded Garden” by Diane Fitzgerald gives me references of leaves and flowers and the stitches used to create them. From there I make up my own but the techniques and instructions in this book are fabulous. I used it to help me create the piece below, my own beaded garden.

Recently I have become enamored with bead embroidery. My daughter was having a masquerade party for her birthday and asked if I would make her a beaded mask so I begrudgingly gave it a try and a new addiction was born. I then bought the book “The Art of Bead Embroidery” by Heidi Kummli and Sherry Serafini. In that book you will have an enormous amount of information about everything bead embroidery. They give you information about foundations to bead into, backings, finishing techniques and more so that you can make a piece of jewelry you’ll be proud to wear and is professional in detail and technique. I began with cuffs and am now designing my first neckpiece.

If you like to make your own beaded beads for your designs, “The Art of Beaded Beads” from Lark Books is terrific and again once you learn the techniques you create your own designs in no time. They have some really fun and quite fascination techniques to learn and explore. I found it very helpful with this design.

 

If you find yourself balking at the price of some of these and other beading books, just remember you will have this information at your fingertips for years and years to come. Don’t skimp on your supplies and this certainly includes your resource materials such as books, magazines, etc…

Be sure to stop by my website Divella Delights!