Gotta Catch 'em All! Part 1

I don't know if you've heard, but Pokemon is hot again, thanks to a new mobile app called Pokemon Go! This app is possibly the best thing ever to get kids who are too involved in indoor activities, out and about.

I thought I'd have a little beading fun and make beadies of the pokemon my sons have caught so far. Here is part 1.

Charmander (Pokemon #4)

You can find the pattern for Charmander here. I made a couple of modifications to this pattern that I thought would make it nicer for putting on a backpack or purse.

I did the tail with a separate piece of plastic lacing, strung through the three yellow beads at the bottom of his tummy. Then, I strung the plastic lacing through the middle beads of the row just below the eyes, to tie the tail "up" more like Charmander uses it.

 This makes it more 3-D and less long and dangly.

 Caterpie, Pokemon #10

This Caterpie pattern came from Jason's Beadie Site. I have links to his site on my website, but while looking for some of these Pokemon patterns, I found that Jason's site host has enabled some annoying and potentially dangerous pop-up ads that tell you things like "your media player may be out of date" and want you to install things - not cool! Therefore, I have included the pattern from his site here:

Paras, Pokemon #46

Again, this one is from Jason's site, so here is the pattern:

These are just three of the two dozen or so different Pokemon that my sons have caught so far. More to come soon!

New Beadies! Monster High Characters

It's harder nowadays for me to stay up on all the new characters in kids' shows. Luckily, I have some friends with small children. One of them has a daughter who is into Monster High. I was in the mood to do some designing, so I decided to start with her favorite. I ended up designing 5 that day.

Frankie

Draculaura

Cleo

Lagoona

Spectra

These designs were all created using icandream.com's Fashion Doll Pattern Maker. 

Some of the colors I used are hard to come by in retail stores. I recommend ordering from bolekscrafts.com. They have 60 colors of pony beads in two sizes (regular and mini). You can order in bags of 75 or 1000 in the regular size, or bags of 90 or 1000 in the mini size. Their prices are great, and their quality is better than the beads you will find in a retail store.

You can also try finding the assortment that comes in a divided container from Walmart to find most of the colors you need. 

I plan on putting these on the site officially soon. But these patterns are simple enough that you should be able to figure them out by looking at the picture. I am working on getting Expression 3 on my new computer so that I can work on my website.

Beadies for Easter

It's almost Easter. What a wonderful time of year.

If you're looking for a fun craft for the kids to do over Easter weekend, here are some ideas:

 I have several patterns for "bunnies" on my beadiecritters website. Here is one of them.

One of my website visitors made bunnies from this pattern in several different colors. So cute!

An Easter basket pattern, complete with chocolate bunny!

A whole set of Easter items, including 3 eggs, a bunny, and a basket.

 

This chick pattern comes from makingfriends.com.

This lamb pattern is so cute! Also from Making Friends.

If you are entertaining younger children who may not be able to do these crafts, put out a bowl of pastel-colored pony beads and let them string them on plastic lacing. (Not recommended for children under 3 unless closely supervised.)

New Video! How to Make a Beadie Gecko

Today I made a video tutorial for making a beadie gecko. This is a great project for beginners, and I hope that a video will help explain the process if anyone is struggling. I'm hoping to make more videos, showing other techniques.