Freckles Business Card Holder | ||||||||||||||
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I found this giraffe pattern on bead-patterns.com. It's a neat site because they have bead lessons, quite a lot of free patterns, and many inexpensive downloadable patterns. This was one of the latter. The designer called him "Giraffe," but I call this guy "Freckles." I think my name fits better. This beaded piece is done in peyote stitch. The original pattern incorporated more colors than my piece -- his spots were red, green, blue and orange. It was all those colors that actually first caught my eye. But I wanted to use up some of the delicas I already owned on the background, so only bought beads for the giraffe ... and didn't purchase the correct beads. My background beads have a lot more sparkle than the giraffe beads. The yellow, brown, orange and black beads have a matte finish. The background beads are lined in silver. Makes for an interesting effect. Since I wanted to make this pattern into a business card holder instead of an amulet pouch, I had to alter the pattern a little. I left the width the same as the pattern, but added more red and green beads to lengthen it.
Originally, I thought I would do the back of the piece in one solid color, but it was so much fun to do the pattern on the front, I decided to repeat it on the back. The one thing I'm not totally sold on is the way the sides are stitched together. I used a neutral grey beading thread (the only color I have right now). When I sewed the sides together, the grey thread shows. It's tidy, but not so pretty. I tried a couple different bead techniques to cover the edges, but they didn't look right either, so I decided to keep it simple. I quite pleased with the outcome of this piece. I like the idea that it's cute, it sparkles and it's useful!
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