Card Beading is a process of emboridering beads onto fabric so that part or all of the fabric is covered by beads.
The fabric, called the ground, was, historically, a "paper" card similar to manila stock. Today special "bead card" can be purchased which is much more durable. Some beaders prefer this bead card. Virtually all the work on these pages has been done using non-woven interfacing as the ground. The work is done in an embroidery hoop. (See the picture below for a view of a piece in progress.)
The beads may be attached to the ground in a wide variety of ways. Most of the work on these pages was done by attaching the accent beads first then couching strings of size 10 or 11 seed beads to the ground to fill the background. The fish piece and the hair buckle below were created by stitching individual size 8 seed beads to the ground with size 11 beads to hold the larger seeds on. This gives a particularly interesting multicolor finish to the piece which does not show up well on the scans.
All designs on this page are original except where noted. All work on this page is the work of BJ Chadwick except the purple flower which is the work of Elaine Messner, from a design and class by BJ Chadwick. The flower is displayed with permission. This page and all designs are copyright 1996, 1997, 1998 or 1999 by BJ Chadwick unless otherwise noted.

Click on any image to see a larger view.

	Butterfly Necklace -- adaptation of a design by Anne Benson -- Approximately 4" x 3" This is the first piece of card beading I ever did.
Blue and Pink Butterfly Necklace-- adaptation of a design by Anne Benson -- Approximately 4" x 3"
	Kimono Necklace-- adaptation of a design by Anne Benson -- Approximately 3" x 4.5" This was the second piece of card beading I did.
Blue Kimono Necklace-- adaptation of a design by Anne Benson -- Approximately 3" x 4.5" With freshwater pearls and coral beads
	Fish Pin -- Original design -- Approximately 4" x 4"
Wreath Ornament -- Original design -- Approximately 4" x 4"
	Keyring -- Original Design -- Approximately 2" diameter -- center is an antique button
Blue Flower Pin -- Original design -- Approximately 3" in diameter. Below are the same pattern done in orange and in purple.
	Abstract Pin -- Original Design -- Approximately 3" x 2" -- using an old button
Hair Buckle -- Original Design -- Approximately 7"x 3"
	Beaded Box -- Original design -- Approximately 2.5" x2.5" x .75" -- Based on a folded paper box. The box is made of leather with silver lame lining.

Home