'And the Bead Goes on...' - Making the Beaded Badges

If you have been keeping up with the daily bead project - 'And the Bead Goes On...' you will know I am have made little badge like pieces during February.
Here are all the February beaded pieces for my daily project. Hard to photograph with the bright beads and glistening beads etc. but you will have seen them up close anyway as I did them.

February Beaded Badges

 

You can see the individual ones for week 9 up close on Sunday. I tried out some new things this week, so some aren't as tidy looking as others, but then learning new things is part of the journey!

A run down of some of the steps which go into making the majority of them. If you want to know more, do ask.

There was a small pack of playing cards in one of the Christmas crackers this year. I thought it might be fun to cover them with fabric and use them in the daily beading project. The cards are approximately 1 5/8 x 2 1/8 inches in size. I have some other little packs of cards I have saved from previous Christmasses, but this one was even a bit smaller than those.

This photo shows the pieces and a final 'badge'.

First I layered a rectangle of felt, with a bit of loft to it, between the fabric and the playing card.

Then I wrapped the fabric around the card. At first, as I mentioned a week or so ago, I stiched the flaps down on the back, but it was taking alot of extra time. So, then I used fabric glue, gluing each flap and pressing it with a hot iron between baking parchment. I used a layer of baking parchment between it and the iron because sometimes the glue oozed out. I did all of the cards for the month. This made it quicker for the daily task. However, the hardened glue sometimes interferred with being able to stitch the felt to the fabric on the back. So if I were not trying to save time, I would go back to the stitched method.

This particular fabric lent itself to think of the little coloured squares as opportunity for creating compositions. I have another fabric I may use in the future that is more of an overall pattern and will inspire different ways to embellish it.

Sometimes I used a thread which matched the bead, sometimes I used one which contrasted. Each of the badges have one thing in common besides the fabric...the larger white bead in the edge.
The beads on the edge are sewn on using a back stitch (this method can be used for pick stitch, only the stitch is much smaller. Beaded pick stitch on a zip or neckline gives a bit more elegance to a garment). You come up at the far edge of the place where you mean to stitch the bead. Then you pick up your bead or beads on your needle and go back down on the near side of where you want the bead located. When you go in, you travel along under the fabric surface and come up beyond where the next bead or set of beads will go!

And there you are! So you may ask, and some have already, what will you do with them. Well, at the moment, I am seeing them sewn down the length of ribbons. Not sure if that is what they will be, but that is what comes to mind for now.

I am going to link this post to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday tomorrow when she sets it up.

Tomorrow is March! I am going back to fabric beads for March. You can see the first 2 on Sunday.
31 beads seems a lot, but not if you are talking putting them onto something. We need MORE! Plenty of scope for other colours other bead types and so on! They look just like little sweets and are lovely to run your hands through!