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Valuable Glass Bead Making Tips and Tricks from Arrow Springs

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arrow_springs_home_page_2Are you a glass bead maker? Do you feel like you need more information about glass bead making? Have you been to Arrow Springs web site? If you have then you know that they provide a lot of valuable information for the new bead maker as well as those with experience. Besides that they have one of the greatest selection of tools and materials for all types of glass work.

I was teaching a glass bead making class recently and wanted to provide my students with more information. Information they could use to start setting up their studio or expand the knowledge they already have. Things like coating mandrels properly with bead release and the types or bead release they offer or hooking up your regulators once you get them home. There’s a page on how to make your own frit. I love using frit. Or using pixie dust, that’s different from fairy dust but just as magical. They even give you the information on how to test if the glass you have is compatible. Glass compatibility is so important so this is great information to have. You can download the pdf or just print the pages straight out from their site. This stuff is so helpful for making your bead making experience that much better.

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Christmas Ornament Cross Stitch Patterns

The other day I shared some cross stitch patterns with ornaments on them, so this time around I wanted to share cross stitch patterns that you can use as ornaments. It would be fun to do a whole tree in your craft room with cross stitch ornaments, or just add a few to your tree or give them as gifts.

These little quilt inspired cross stitch patterns from Flamingo Toes look like ornaments and fit in 3-inch hoops, which are perfect for hanging on the tree or using to decorate a gift. I love the pastel colors on these but you can use more traditional Christmas colors if you like.

This cute Christmas tree from Lagodargetoshop uses a single color and fits in a 4-inch hoop, but you could make it smaller if you wanted by trimming the last ornaments and gifts from the sides, or just stitch the tree without any other embellishments. Either way it’s a cute addition to your holiday tree.

Stitched Modern has a super cute collection of retro Christmas ornament cross stitch patterns from designer Gera. This is a printed pattern that will be shipped to you. Each pattern is about 40 by 56 stitches, or 2.9 by 4 inches/7.4 by 10 cm on 14 count fabric. To work the whole set you’ll need 20 colors of floss.

These snowflake ornaments from Our Little Handmade Home are each about 2.5 inches/6.4 cm when stitched on 14 count fabric, and they use a single color of floss. They are pretty in red but you could also do white on a blue or black background, or whatever suits your other Christmas tree decorations!

From the description it sounds like this set of vintage style cross stitch characters is presented as one large chart, but the photo from Sampler Antique Stitch shows each of them stitched up as their own little ornament, so it gets included here. You’ll find Santa and snowmen in different poses in this cute collection.