How to make a lilac branch of beads, step-by-step photos and a description of several techniques of weaving for beaded floristics

January 12, 2018 handmadebase

A wonderful time of year is spring, very oftenis associated with blossoming flowers. But what to do if there is snow outside and the weather is still a long way off? Lush lilac brushes of all shades of purple, violet, blue and even white flowers that will remind you of spring can be made with your own hands, for example, woven from beads. This amazing material seems so bright, new and fresh that you don’t even think that archaeologists discovered the first glass beads during excavations of Egyptian tombs. Beads, as a material for handicrafts, are many hundreds of years old. Their history is inextricably linked with the creation of glass, as the main material for tiny beads. Although in ancient times beads were made not only from glass mass, beads were cut from bone, shells, stone, and wood, smelted from gold, silver and copper, the Chinese made beads from porcelain. There are many legends about the origin of glass beads. A sad Turkmen legend says that far away in the desert there is a deep cave in which an evil spirit lives. He kidnapped beautiful girls and hid them in it. The captive beauties cried bitterly, chained to a rock, and their tears became precious beads. Another legend attributes the creation of glass, and therefore glass beads, to Phoenician merchants. They say they were traveling along the Mediterranean coast with a load of natural soda (saltpeter) on board. One evening they moored for the night, but there were no stones for a hearth on the deserted shore, and so they lined the fire with pieces of soda. In the morning, in the burnt-out fire, the merchants found an amazing ingot, transparent as water and rock-hard. Of course, legends remain just beautiful fairy tales. Historical information says that the very first masters of glassmaking were the Egyptians. Then their skills were adopted by the Greeks and Romans. From Rome, the secrets of glass making came to Byzantium, and then to Venice. It was this country that became a monopolist in the production of glass and beads for Europe for many years. The craftsmen kept the methods of its creation a closely guarded secret. Beads from Venice were exchanged for exotic rarities, furs, gold and slaves. And yet, with the development of navigation and the discovery of new lands and countries, not small workshops but entire glass factories began to appear. Beads became a popular material for creativity.

Lilac of beads

Option 1To make the craft look neatchoose only well-calibrated beads. In this master class, we suggest making one branch of lilac. To create a bouquet, you will just need to take a larger number of beads. Material and tools:

Green beads for the leaves.
Beads lilac, lilac or white for flowers.
A glass bead in a tone of beads designed for flowers.
A wire 0,3 mm under color of beads (green for leaves and a suitable color for flowers).
Floral green ribbon.
Mulina is green.
Tools for working with wire (nippers, scissors).
A little vase.
Alabaster, if you want to fix the lilac in the vase.

In this master class dark pink was usedbeads for flowers. Flowers On a piece of wire about 50 cm long, string 5 beads. Now you need to move them 9-12 cm from the edge and twist the loop. On the longer end, put on 5 more beads and twist the second loop tightly to the first. You need to add 2 more exactly the same loops. The twisted together wire tails should be perpendicular to the bead loops. This is what you should get. Probably, everyone has looked at lilac flowers closely and knows that each flower has a small "leg" under the petals. The role of these "legs" will be played by bugle beads, so try to choose beads and bugle beads of the same shade. Now take 1 piece of bugle beads and thread both wire ends through it. We got one flower.In exactly the same way, you need to weave more8-9 flowers on the same piece of wire. You need to twist them into a bunch, as in the photo. Now wrap the green flor tape over the wire. We have the first small branch ready. The more lush you want to make your lilac, the more such branches you need to prepare. 30 pieces will be enough for one branch. Now just collect the branches, attaching them in a checkerboard pattern, relative to each other. First, wrap them with threads, and then with floristic tape. Probably, in childhood, many believed that if you find a lilac flower with five petals, it will definitely bring good luck. To make sure this happens, one of the flowers can be made five-petaled and magical. Just add another loop of pink beads.Leaves As with many other bead craftsfloristry to create lilac leaves, the French arc technique is used. For convenience, you can string the beads on the wire without tearing them off the spool. You will need a fairly large string. Now move the beads away from the end and screw a small additional piece of wire by about 12-15 turns. We should have about 5-6 cm of additional wire left free. You need to string 5 green beads on the axis. Now we start making circles with the working wire (the one on the spool). We make leaves with 5, 6 and 7 pairs of arcs. You can make a pair of leaves with 8 pairs of arcs. Lilac leaves are not round, but pointed, so when you make turns with the working wire around the axis from above, you need to place the wire not perpendicular to the axis, but at an angle of about 45 degrees. When the leaf is ready, move the bead string further along the spool, the working wire should be at the bottom of the leaf. We cut it off and twist the existing tails. The end that remains from the axis must be carefully tucked in, threaded through the beads of the upper arc.To give the leaflet additionalFor stability and rigidity, we screw another piece of wire onto the petiole. Then we wrap it with threads and mask everything with floral tape on top. For one branch, we will need about 20 leaves. From 3 - 5 leaves, we form branches. We arrange them in a checkerboard pattern, fasten them with threads and mask everything with floral tape.Assembly Now all that remains is to fasten the leaves and the branch with flowers first with threads and then with floral tape.The lilac branch is ready. You can put it in a vase and fill it with a mixture of alabaster and water or use it at your discretion, as an element of a panel, for example. Option 2In this tutorial on creating lilac branches from beadsa very interesting leaf weaving pattern will be offered. They are very strong and dense, thanks to the parallel weaving technique. Material and tools:

Beads 10/0 are green for leaves.
Beads 10/0 lilac and white for flowers.
Prostolochka 0.3 mm for weaving.
Wire 2-3 mm for the branches.
PVA glue.
Tools for working with wire.
Vase.
Threads of a mulina are green.

Flowers Technique for creating flowers –loop, similar to the previous master class with minor differences. String 5 beads on a 32 cm piece of wire. Move them to the middle of the wire and cross both ends in the last bead, i.e. pass them through the bead towards each other.Now thread another one onto one end of the wire.5 beads, move them to the bead loop and thread the end of the wire through the first bead in the opposite direction. Tighten and get the second loop.We do the same with the second end of the wire.We should now have three loops of five beads each. The last fourth loop can be made on any of the wire ends. This is what should happen.Now we twist the ends of the wire so thatour loops are connected into a ring. String 4 more beads onto the twisted ends. Now move them to the loops and arrange them so that this "leg" of 4 beads is located perpendicular to the loops. We have one flower.For one bunch of lilacs you will need about 70-80 of these things.We begin to collect lilac inflorescences. To do this, we twist 6-7 of our blanks into one bunch.When all the inflorescences are ready, each of themwrap with threads for about 3 cm. Do not forget to grease the wire on which you will wind the threads with glue. Now choose the most beautiful inflorescence. It will be the top (or tip) of the bunch. Screw the rest of the inflorescences to it in a checkerboard pattern, combining 4 pieces in a circle. After each such circle, wind with threads for 3-4 cm and again make a circle of 4 inflorescences. When one circle of inflorescences remains to be wound, attach a piece of thick wire, which will serve as the trunk of the lilac branch. It can be replaced with a knitting needle. Lilac bunches are quite heavy, so it is necessary to additionally strengthen it so that the branch does not bend.Leaves In this master class, as was saidabove, we will weave the leaves using the parallel technique. In order for the leaves to look even and beautiful, try to choose well-calibrated beads. This technique is characterized by a tight fit of beads in rows, so if they differ in size, this will lead to a skew of the product. The photo shows an approximate weaving pattern. You can independently increase or decrease the leaves by changing the number of beads in rows and the number of rows themselves.This master class uses copperwire, and the product will look more harmonious if you use multi-colored wire: green for leaves and pink, lilac or white for flowers. Such wire can be found in handicraft stores. The leaf will consist of two halves. We begin to weave the first. On a piece of wire approximately 40 cm long, string 3 green beads. Move them to the center and cross the ends of the wire in the last two beads. Tighten the wire.We got the first and second row of the leaflet withone and two beads respectively. There will be 3 beads in the third row. To do this, we string them on one end of the wire and pass the second end through them towards the first. Then the number of beads in the rows will be as follows: 4-5-6-7-6-5-3-1. There should be 11 rows in total.The main feature of weaving half a leaf inthat the beads are always strung on the same end of the wire. One side of the leaf should be convex, and the other flat. It is to it that we will weave the second half of the leaf. Take another piece of wire 40 cm long and thread it through the very first bead from above. Place it so that the bead is in the center. Put a bead on each end and cross them on the right bead (see photo). Tighten the wire.Now you need to string 2 beads on one of the wire ends and cross them in these beads.Now the end of the wire that is closer to the half of the leaf must be passed through the wire loop located between the 2nd and 3rd rows of the first half of the leaf.Next we weave in a similar manner.For the next row, we take 3 beads, cross the wire ends in them, and then thread the closest one through the wire loop of the first half of the leaf. When the leaf is woven, twist the wire ends a couple of times to secure the beads. For each bunch of lilacs, we will need 6 leaves. We wrap each leaf with threads for about 2 cm, maybe a little more. Now we need to fasten the leaves into one branch and wrap them with threads. Do not forget to thoroughly lubricate with glue so that the threads do not unravel.All that remains is to attach the branch with leaves tobranch with flowers. For a full bouquet in the photo, two more branches were woven: one lilac and one white. Advice! If you do not want to use threads for winding, use a special tape that is sold in floristry or handicraft shops. Another option would be corrugated paper of the corresponding color. Just cut it into strips about 1 cm wide. In this case, the corrugated paper, like the threads, will need to be glued.

Comments

comments

Lilac of beads

Comments

Related posts: