flowers made from beads!

i've skipped ahead to the Crafty Creatives box 13 - the birthday box! this has five kits to make which is very exciting! the first one i've tried is the french beaded flower. i liked it so much i've made two, one from each of the colour beads i got in the kit. here's the first:

i kept pretty much to the instructions with this one, which as usual were very clear about what to do! it did turn out a little bigger than intended, but that's what happens when the instructions say start with 8 beads and you think 'well, that bead is very small, so i'll stick another one on, and maybe a few more for luck'!

i decided to experiment with the next one and made it a bit fancier!

i made the outer petals with seven beads in the middle, and three loops around, and i used the top two of those seven middle beads to separate the loops and encourage them into a pointier petal shape. on top of those there are three smaller petals, these have five beads in the middle and two loops round. i made the stamens slightly differently by twisting three groups of five beads on to two strands of wire.

these flowers are fun to make and my next project is already under way, as i'm going to try combining this kit with the beaded hair clip from box 11 and make a beaded flower hair clip... watch this space!

i will also try to stop making beaded flowers and make one of the other four flower kits!