My design was 13 squares wide, so I needed at least 14 little marks on each end of the box.ģ) Now grab your exacto knife and, right where each and every mark is at either end of the box, slice downward into the box about 1/8 to 1/4 inch deep.Ĥ) Next draw a squareish line on the box’s sides and cut that out, essentially cutting the sides of the box away but leaving just enough at the corners that it maintains its box-shape & structural integrity. And you can just go back and make it bigger later, too.) (You can always make it extra wide, too, if you think you’ll use it to make bigger designs later. This is the number of marks you must make in order to create this design on your loom. Count how many squares wide it is, and add 1. To figure out how many marks you need, go look at your design. Use the ruler to make a series of little marks at both ends of the box – the ruler keeps them fairly straight across from each other. Grab a ruler and a marker that will show on whatever paper the box is made of. One note: Your final beaded piece cannot be larger than the inside of the box, so if you’re using a very small box or want to do a very long or wide design, just make sure your box is big enough for it. Things like little gift boxes with nice sturdy sides work very well for this. If it’s the sort of box that opens with folding flaps, cut those off – you want a box that’s got an even, flat edge at both ends. To do this, get a small cardboard box (or large, but it really doesn’t need to be). Not required but helpful: at one end of your design, number the line of squares that make up the design.Ģ) Set your design aside and make your loom. I recommend doing this in crayon or coloured pencil ( not marker, like I did) so you can still easily see the graph paper lines delineating each individual square. (Obviously this beading lends itself super especially well to pixellated images). All you need for pattern making is a piece of graph paper and some crayons.įor your first few pieces at least, the only limitations on your design are that it be square or rectangular – no uneven edges.ĭraw and colour in whatever design you want on your graph paper. Like cross stitch, the pattern is just a bunch of little squares on a sheet of graph paper, each square representing one bead. In other words, figure out what you want to create on your beading loom and draw that. small needle (very thin, so it can fit through seed beads)ġ) The first thing to actually do, at least before your first beading project, is make a pattern.large decorative beads, jewelry findings, clear nail polish (for securing knots).crayons / coloured pencils / coloured markers.So here’s how to make your own little beading loom, and the basics of how to use it. This is one of those cases where you can get just as nice a result off a cheap DIY loom as off some manufactured metal thing with adjustable knobs and whatnot – it’s just a device to hold your craft in place while you make it, that’s all it is. And I looked at it and realized that it would be very easy to make one’s own functional beading loom with some very inexpensive materials: namely a cardboard box & some string. (Seed beads are not as evil as glitter, but the margin of difference isn’t vast, either).įor all its basic-ness, the loom is really all you need to get started with beading. One of those was my old beading loom, a child’s craft kit for making colourful beaded bracelets and harassing parents with a permanent collection of teeny tiny seed beads embedded in the carpet. I’ll avenge myself by passing this pain along my own children someday.Īnyhow, in the midst of a lot of just throwing things away & some retroactive disgust at growing up before the digital age and having to deal with physical photo albums, a couple of interesting items did surface. I’m quite certain there’s a rule that your parents have to keep your old treasures in their basement until you’re at least in your 40s – that’s the deal my mom got with her parents. Oh well. This provoked a dismaying (to me) and zealous desire to unload us kids’ old stuff, making us take possession of it once more, despite us living in apartments with an even greater lack of storage. My parents recently moved cross-continent to a house with more square footage but less storage space than their old home.
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