Beaded Skull

If you follow me on IG (if you don't, you should) you know that I've been working on a beaded skull for a LONG time. A VERY LONG TIME.

Now a lot of time has gone into it, almost 22 hours at this point. But some of the problem was trying to figure out how to bead with a LO running around the house. She is absolutely obsessed with my beads. Lucky for me, she also understands that she is not to touch them. Well, she understands, but she doesn't always care. I am also lucky, because she doesn't put things in her mouth, so she's not eating my beads. So I think after months of trial and error, I figured out how to work on it with a toddler. So, long story short, I've come up with a method to actually get some beadwork done (it mainly consists of not doing it when she's around or giving her her own craft projects to work on). ​

So after some beading

And more beading

I've covered the skull with small purple and bronze beads. I used a stitch called RAW (right angle weave). You work in a circular fashion, creating each small circle as you go, covering the whole skull. I knew I wanted to use this as my base from the beginning. It's a great stitch to work with for something like this.  

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Once I got it covered I was at a little bit of a stand still. I knew I wanted to embellish it, but I wasn't sure how. So I tried a few things and just let the beads speak to me (I know it's hokey but it's what I did). 

After some trial and error I decided on a tropical rain forest type feel. Like it had been left alone for a long time and nature was starting to reclaim it. 

I used a combination of seed beads in a teal color, glass flowers, and glass pearls to embellish. 

This is where I am right now. Well I've gotten a little bit more done, but you'll have to wait until next update, or you can follow me on Instagram and get all the updates as they happen.  

I'm really loving it so far. I have it on our mantle right now and I love how it looks. I know I've said how much I love it multiple time (a few in this paragraph), but I really do. This is something that I've wanted to do for a very long time and I'm so glad I'm letting myself work on things like this. Things that I love. It just makes the process so much more enjoyable.