OK you guys, Helen promised a tutorial, and she is delivering! Finally. Have you ever had some small beads that matched your kanzashi flower really well, but you didn't want to use them, because they wouldn't cover up the raw edges of the center well enough? No? Well it could happen, and here's what you can do about it.
This is Helen's New Technique, and it occurred to her while she was doing God-knows-what, but it's pretty easy. Here's what you do.....for a small flower, wire together 3 beads, like this....
If you want, you can have the wire crossing over the beads.....will show examples of this later. Anyhoo, leave a length of wire behind it, OK? Now, just insert your contraption into the small hole in the center of your flower....
Sorry about the crappy photo quality. We were using a fluorescent light, and it's hard to photograph purple properly with Helen's camera! Here's another photo to show you what we're doing....
So, insert the wire all the way into the flower, making sure the beads are as centered as possible. Cut the ends short enough to fold them onto the back of the flower, like this.....
Now, make a backing of some sort to glue over the wire ends, sealing them in place....
And here's the flower; silk with lepidolite beads.....
See how the wire crosses over the beads, sort of? And here's a very similar one, another batik cotton with sodalite beads.....
And that's Helen's latest contribution to the art of kanzashi! You're welcome. Now, go try it.
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